David · @YusuiLoL
15th Sep 2020 from TwitLonger
2020 year in review. 2021 plans
TL;DR: 2020 has been the hardest year of my life, and I know this isn’t unique to me so I’ll try to minimize my excuses in this post. I intended to retire if I failed to make LCS by the end of the year, but I don’t feel that it would be right as I wasn’t able to give it my all this year due to unforeseen circumstances (CORONA). I’m still passionate about competing and know that I’m capable of succeeding at the very highest level of play. I’m actively seeking any opportunities primarily as a mid laner going into the 2020 off season. I will also consider swapping to support if it aligns better with my competitive goals. If you’re a fan of mine and want a more in-depth reflection of this past year, see below. To anyone reading, thank you for your support. I’ll be trying to reboot my stream at some point soon (if my home internet allows it!).
I joined TL because I wanted to win. I took their academy offer (any chance of me playing LCS this year fell through) because they were the 4-time LCS champions and I knew I’d be joining a winning organization. The proposed academy roster was a bit of a burger flip (I had no idea how good any of my teammates were apart from Tactical who is obviously a great player), but I was willing to bet on our success and thought I’d be able to leave my mark on TL in a positive way, possibly even competing for an LCS position going into 2021. Obviously, it didn’t work out in my favor, but I think at the time I was thinking with correct priorities given my goal of winning and advancing to a successful LCS team (I did not want to play on a 10th place LCS team, my experience with the Echo Fox LCS team was fairly negative).
The beginning of the Spring split was rough. Due to visa issues with both junglers, we were playing with MikeYeung as our academy jungler. This, combined with the fact that we were playing with a rookie support in Cao, made it very hard to compete in our early season practice & matches. We lacked team synergy and failed to improve at a fast enough rate to win more than 1 in 6 games. Luckily, when Broxah arrived and we started playing with Shern, our team was revitalized and we went on a huge win streak. I felt we were finally meshing well together as a team. Unfortunately, it was at this same time that the LCS team decided to play with Tactical and we were forced to find a last minute replacement (Rikara). Rikara is a very good player, but losing Tactical changed our team dynamic and we were struggling to find the same level of success playing with Rikara.
Coronavirus threw another curveball my way. Prior to the split ending, I relocated to my home in Northern California due to fear of coronavirus being unavoidable if I stayed in LA. My other option was to stay in the academy apartments provided by TL and live there 24 hours a day, as we no longer could access the TL training facility, and everything else had closed down. Going home seemed like a no brainer for me and my family. While playing from home, we made it to the Spring playoffs and promptly lost to EGA 0-3 in the quarterfinals. This was obviously disappointing as I came into the split wanting to win academy.
I won’t lie. Playing at home sucked. It took a lot of the competition out of the matches for me. I loved being able to play half of the academy games on stage (it was a huge improvement from past years) and losing that experience was a huge blow to every pro player. On top of that, I now had to play soloqueue on 75 ping (home internet with packet loss as well) rather than 55 (alienware facility op internet). I also had to play our tournament realm matches on 45 ping rather than the average LA 15 ping (made a huge difference playing some of my favorite champs like Irelia, Akali, etc.).
Summer split was a disaster for a lot of reasons that I won’t dive into too deep because I don’t like airing dirty laundry. I felt that we should keep our Spring roster as we were having a good amount of success in practice and our series vs. EGA was fairly close despite being a 0-3. Furthermore, I knew that teams going into Summer would have a huge advantage over us if we changed our roster again since building team synergy is not always an easy task. We ended up changing both jungle & support and the whole split we were lagging behind other teams and failed to perform at an acceptable level. It was very demoralizing and demotivating being unable to win regular season academy games when I came into the year wanting to dominate and have a great showing that proved I belonged in the LCS.
I’ve been taking time away from the game to gather all of my thoughts and reflect on the past year, but my goal still remains the same and I’d like to give it a fair shot. My experience this year was terrible, undoubtedly the worst year of my life so far, and that’s why I refuse to give up on my dream of being a dominant LCS player. I know I’m capable of competing and thriving at that level and I’m going to work my ass off to earn it. I’m open to any and all offers that come my way and I’ll be doing my best to set myself up for success going into 2021. If you read this whole thing, you a real one. Thanks so much for the support ~ David