Soren ��Bjergsen�� Bjerg and Yiliang ��Doublelift�� Peng have joined the Thieves for the 2023 LoL season, with the team making four changes to their roster after running with the same roster for three straight seasons.
The official twitter of 100 Thieves Esports confirmed their 2023 LoL LCS roster in a tweet on December 9, along with a video introducing their new line-up.
Our biggest heist yet. #100T
Introducing your 100 Thieves roster for the 2023 LCS season:@Bjergsen@Doublelift1@closerlol@tenacityna@Busio pic.twitter.com/K4xhNAovrV
— 100 Thieves Esports (@100T_Esports) December 9, 2022
Regarded as one of the greatest duos in North American League of Legends history, Bjergsen and Doublelift will join forces for the third time throughout their storied careers.
After playing together on Team Solomid for the 2020 season, the last two years saw the legends go in different directions.
Doublelift took time away from professional LoL to focus on his streaming career, while Bjergsen stayed at TSM to coach the team.
Bjergsen then joined Team Liquid as the attempted to create a superteam for the 2022 season, however, they ultimately failed and resulted in massive changes to the Team Liquid organisation.
Doublelift and Bjergsen will join two rookies that have been apart of the 100 Thieves development system since 2020 in, Milan ��Tenacity�� Oleksij and Alan ��Busio�� Cwalina, while Can ��Closer�� Celik is the only returning member of the 2022 100 Thieves LCS roster.
]]>Despite previously retiring in 2020, Bjergsen made his way back to competitive play earlier this year when joining Team Liquid. Prior to that, he took on a coaching job with TSM.?
?The Danish star spent seven years with TSM as player and coach, and he was a year into his time with Liquid before leaving in mid-November. He led TL to a $150,000 grand prize at the 2022 LCS Lock-In tournament, where they bested Evil Geniuses in the grand final.
?Bjergsen was a key figure in Liquid’s plan to forge the strongest LoL roster in North America. The franchise owner, Steve Arhancet, made that much clear in a press statement released in September.?
?��Going into the season, I was completely enamored by the idea of building a roster that would potentially be the best that the region had seen in the last decade,�� Arhancet said.?
?Although they fielded top players in every role, Liquid exited the LCS Summer Playoffs in the lower-bracket semifinals after suffering a defeat at the hands of the Evil Geniuses (2-3). As a result, they missed out on a place in the LoL World Championship.
?Regardless of the team’s inability to run a great campaign in 2022, Bjergsen recorded excellent numbers. He led the LCS in KDA in both the spring and summer splits, posting 8.9 and 7.7 marks, respectively.? ?
Rumors of Bjergsen joining 100 Thieves have been in the news for weeks. He has also been linked to the recruitment of former TSM teammate Yiliang ��Doublelift�� Peng, who is reportedly another target for 100T.? ?
100 Thieves have yet to release their full roster for the upcoming season. They’ve reportedly pledged to promote NA��s number one overall support player, Alan “Busio” Cwalina, to the LCS stage.? ?According to the global contract database, the team’s entire starting lineup — except top laner Ssumday ��Ssumsay�� Kim Chan-ho — is signed up till the end of the 2023 season. ?
?100 Thieves have also made some changes to their front office, parting ways with longtime general manager Chris ��PapaSmithy�� Smith. His position was given to Joseph ��Jungle Juice�� Jang, who was promoted from his previous role as Head of Strategy and Analytics.? ?
100T also released head coach Bok “Reaped” Han-gyu and are yet to announce a replacement.
]]>Bjergsen has been with Team Liquid since November 2021; prior to joining the European team, he competed for teams such as Team LDLC.com, Ninjas in Pyjamas, TSM, and Western Wolves, with which he started his professional career as early as 2012.
The 26-years old mid laner has also served as a coach in TSM, spending a sum total of 8 years with the organization, starting as a player and evolving to a coach for the team. The Denmark star has also been named MVP at the North American LCS on four different occasions, and is the fourth player in the LCS to reach a 1000 kills
Bjergsen has led his team to win multiple tournaments award than any one can imagine. As a coach in TSM , the team came in 1st place at the 2020 LCS Summer, and 2nd place at the 2019 LCS Spring. And in January this year, while in Team Liquid he coached the team to earn a 1st place at the 2022 LCS Lock-in. These records have proven that besides been a formidable player, he is also an excellent coach.
In a video released by the organization, Bjergsen chronicled his experience with the team and discussed the new interests he discovered while representing the organization. He also admitted that he has developed incredible friendships with the members of his squad. He praised his fans for their continued support and thanked Team Liquid for providing him with a platform upon his return to the professional scene after having retired for a period of time.
“In terms of competing we didn��t really get the results that we wanted but there are still a lot of good things to take away and I built some good relationships with people here,” Bjergsen said.
“I wanted to just thank the TL fans for being so accepting and inviting from the beginning,” Bjergsen said. “I was a little bit nervous because I had been competing against TL for so long, but the fans have been really sweet and welcoming, and now that I��m going elsewhere, I hope that you guys are going to keep supporting me.”
All Team Liquid’s efforts to transcend into the League of Legends World Championship failed, as they did not qualify for the Mid-Season Invitational, despite building a supposedly strong team filled with veterans such as ADC Steven “Hans Sama” Liv, Support Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in, and Gabri?l “Bwipo” RauB.
Following the unfortunate turn around for the team, the organization is set to form another roster, but this time they hinted to bring up young talents from the Academy, rather than signing star players in the free agency market. Nonetheless, Hans Sama has already parted ways with the team, and CoreJJ is reportedly remaining with Team Liquid ahead of the next season.
Currently it is unknown what team Bjergsen will be exploring; he could be in talks with other organizations, go back to coaching, or leave the professional scene for a while to refocus on streaming and his personal life, as most esports players have been doing lately.
]]>Mixwell is a 27-year-old Spanish national who is well known for his impressive gaming skills. The former CS:GO AWPer has played for top esports organizations like OpTic Gaming, Movistar Riders, and Cloud9, and he was part of the OpTic team that won the America Minor Championship in 2016.
While mixwell was with G2 Esports, the organization competed in and won two international LAN competitions. G2 also finished in the top four at the Masters tournament held in Berlin in 2021 and then finished in the top six at the Reykjavik Masters tournament the following year. Mixwell has become well-known for portraying a variety of different agents, but he is perhaps best recognized for his role as Jett, for which he has a KD average of 1.28.
Team Heretics, based in Spain, field squads in titles which include Fortnite, Call of Duty, Clash Royale, CS:GO, and Rainbow Six. In contrast to G2, Heretics were among the 10 teams that were invited to participate in Riot Games’ Valorant partner leagues in 2023.
There is a chance that mixwell will reunite with his former teammate Cista “keloqz” Wassim, who left G2 Esports in February to join Team Heretics.
]]>?The Danish player achieved the impressive feat during Game 4 of Team Liquid��s series against 100 Thieves in the 2022 LCS Summer Playoffs. The match was played right after he selected Zilean, his patented champion.? ?
Bjergsen is known for his time with TSM, which lasted eight impressive seasons. He is also regarded as one of the most formidable players in the entire league, having been part of the LCS for more than 10 years. ?
?The player previously led TSM as the team��s head coach. However, he decided to return to the professional competitive scene as a player in 2022. Bjergsen��s decision to play again saw him sign up with Team Liquid in late November 2021.?
?The LCS kill record was previously held by Jason “WildTurtle” Tran, another veteran player who has played professionally for over a decade. The 27-year-old is considered to be one of the greatest ADCs in LCS history. WildTurtle last played for the North American esports organization Immortals and exited in May 2022.?
?After coming back to professional play this year, Bjergsen surpassed his long-time friend and rival Yiliang “Peter” Peng, popularly known as Doublelift, on the career kill leaderboard. During their LCS careers, both players competed against each other in separate teams and played alongside each other. Doublelift has since made a career switch, transitioning into content creation and streaming.? ?
At Bjergsen��s end, the season is not yet over, so the mid laner still has ample opportunity to put an even wider gap between him and other players with a high number of kills. ? ?
Despite Bjergsen’s feat, 100 Thieves emerged as the victor of the series and prevented a reverse sweep from Team Liquid, which saw TL relegated to the lower bracket. All is not lost for Liquid, however, as they still have the chance to earn a spot at the upcoming 2022 LoL World Championship, which is scheduled to commence on September 29 in Mexico.? ?
Next, Team Liquid will take on Counter Logic Gaming in the LCS 2022 Summer lower-bracket quarterfinals. TL are clear favorites to win the match, paying $1.31 odds on GG Bet. If Liquid defeat CLG, they will then battle the victor in the other fixture between Evil Geniuses and TSM.
]]>Instead, Bjergsen has extended his contract with TSM for two more years while also becoming a partial owner of the organization.
TSM are recognised as one of the strongest LoL esports teams in North America, but they have failed to live up to that name in the last two seasons.
The last time Team SoloMid sat on the throne in the LoL Championship Series was in the summer of 2017, when they crushed Immortals (3-1) to claim their sixth LCS title. Since then, however, TSM have failed to find the same success.
TSM finished fifth-sixth in 2018 spring split, third in 2018 summer split, second in 2019 spring split and finished their 2019 season with a fifth-sixth place finish in 2019 summer playoffs.
TSM’s failure to come through the 2018 NA regional finals, where they lost to C9 in the grand finals (0-3) meant TSM failed to earn a ticket for Worlds for the first time in their history.
And while the NA powerhouse hoped that was a one-time occurrence, they suffered the same fate in 2019, when they got outclassed by Clutch Gaming in the 2019 regional finals (2-3), meaning TSM missed out on competing on the big stage for the second year in a row.
The poor results put up by the North American giants started rumours of their star player Bjergsen looking for a way out of the team in search of new challenges and most importantly more success in another team.
There were already speculations about possible replacements for one of the most iconic mid-laners in LoL scene, however, all those speculations and rumours turned to dust this Monday, October 14, when TSM released an announcement they have reached an agreement with the Danish superstar and are re-signing Bjergsen for two more years.
In the announcement video posted by TSM on Twitter, Bjergsen revealed the biggest factor that made him decide to extend his contract with TSM was the team owner Andy “Reginald” Dinh, with whom Bjergsen developed a good and healthy relationship.
Bjergsen went on to explain he trusts Reginald with his vision and the direction he wishes to take TSM in the upcoming season, which helped inspired confidence in Bjergsen who decided he wishes to continue his career under the TSM banner.
After two less than impressive seasons, it looks like the North American organization could be on the verge of a strong revival, which they hope will return them back on the top of North American professional LoL scene. And it��s safe to say that the resigning of the Danish superstar is one huge step in the right direction.
On top of the announcements of the re-signing of Bjergsen, it was also revealed the 23-year old has become a part-owner of TSM, meaning he is following the footsteps of Reginald, who was as well a midlaner at TSM before he retired and took over the role of team owner.
This move now makes Bjergsen one of the few player-owners in the esports world and shows his dedication to stick with the organization through thick and thin, indicating that Bjergsen could be transitioning to an alternative role in the company once he decides to retire as a player.
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