Team Liquid have announced that they have benched Chae ‘Piglet’ Gwang-jin for Week 5 of the LCS, with Yuri ‘KEITHMCBRIEF’ Jew taking his place on the squad.
Piglet was acquired in the offseason from Season 3 World Champions SK Telecom T1. Unfortunately, due to visa issues, he missed the first week of the season, in which he was temporarily replaced by KEITHMCBRIEF but immediately slotted in to the starting line-up upon his arrival. However, since he has joined Team Liquid, Piglet has been far from impressive, epitomised by Liquids current 2-4.
Piglet’s marksman performances have been poor, and he currently ranks last in both Kill/Death/Assist and Damage per Minute, with 2.92 and 378 respectively. Piglet’s KDA is especially inferior, with the league’s average of 5.9 over double his own.
In a statement released on the team’s official website, Team Liquid’s head coach, Peter Zhang, stated that; “This decision was not made lightly. There have been ongoing issues during scrims and training that have resulted in a poor dynamic”. Rumours have also circulated, claiming that Piglet was supposedly dropped after complaining about Xpecial and Fenix and rage quitting scrims whilst playing with team.
Regardless of reports, one issue that we do know is a problem for Team Liquid and Piglet is the current language barrier formed between the squad. Unfortunately, Gwang-jin’s English is not as good as previously expected and despite Liquid brining a translator on board to help Piglet with his communication, the team have failed to work together efficiently as a cohesive unit, represented in their loss to Gravity Gaming last weekend.
The big talking point now, is whether or not Piglet will regain his spot on Liquid for Week 6, especially if KEITHMCBRIEF performs as well as he did during his appearance. Team Liquid looked unstoppable within Week 1, but after working hard to acquire a big name like Piglet, will they be happy to bench him permanently if things improve with the new line-up? One thing is for sure, there will be several eyes watching Team Liquid when they take on Winterfox this weekend, including Piglet’s.
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