TSM under fire for rumored LCS academy roster

TSM’s rumored academy roster is stacked with LCS veterans that have been on and off of LCS teams for the better part of a decade, and the League community is calling them out for not signing new talent.

It’s been a more than hectic off-season around the League of Legends world, with teams from every major region getting swapped around and imports galore, especially in North America.

Reports have indicated that TSM will be signing Lee ‘Bugi’ Seong-yeop, an imported jungler, to their main LCS roster alongside Huang ‘Maple’ Yi-Tang, a veteran mid laner that was imported last year.

Meanwhile, longtime veteran talent has been rumored to be in their academy program. Kevin ‘Haunzter’ Yarnell, Dennis ‘Svenskeren’ Johnsen, and Jason ‘WildTurtle’ Tran being on their acad roster would give the team almost 30 years worth of competitive experience with those players combined. Meanwhile, fans argue that academy teams should be for developing new players and not retaining old ones.

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TSM rumored academy roster stacked with veterans

It’s important to note that community sentiment isn’t that veterans should be entirely excluded from the academy system, far from it. Players like Darshan ‘Darshan’ Upadhyaya have been in academy for years, and having talent on a team that brings years’ worth of experience can have some value in teaching up-and-coming talent.

However, as academy caster Mad Magical pointed out, issues come when it’s a roster that’s almost solely made up of veterans. With Hauntzer, Wildturtle, and Svenskeren all having around a decade worth of experience each and Stephen ‘Triple’ Li playing competitively since 2015, there’s certainly an argument to be made there.

Magical would go on to clarify that these players “deserve” to be in academy, but that there shouldn’t be rosters in a development league that is fully made up of experienced players.

Just cuz this gained traction, I want to clarify that this isn’t meant as an anti-vet sentiment but as a not having a near full team of vets stance. Vets have a place in acad and deserve to be there

— Magical (Alex) (@Mad_Magical) November 25, 2022

This argument would get carried over to Reddit, with a post that garnered over 2k upvotes from user greendino71 claiming that “vets who have been around since 2013 or so shouldn’t be allowed in academy.”

While this veteran academy roster has yet to be confirmed by TSM, the rumored roster has certainly put the organization in hot water on top of some already controversial circumstances surrounding a partnership with FTX.

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