Team Liquid have pulled off a double swoop, as just hours after announcing the arrival of former TSM AD Carry Peter “Doublelift” Peng, they have also completed the signing of Adrian “Adrian” Ma from fellow North American League Championship Series side, Pheonix1.
The move finalizes a complete overhaul of the Team Liquid lineup. Just last week the team moved veteran Korean AD Carry Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin into the mid lane to replace the outgoing Greyson “Goldenglue” Gilmer. NA LCS fan-favourite Doublelift took the vacant spot that was briefly held by Jung “Youngbin” Young-bin. Adrian will not immediately take the place of Matthew “Matt” Elento. Instead, the player will “provide [Team Liquid’s] coaching staff options for the remainder of the split and enables our experienced support duo to provide valuable feedback to each other.”
“I’m very excited to be joining Team Liquid. While the team’s performance has been below expectations this split, I see massive potential in this roster and I hope to help us get better one day at a time. Hopefully Matt and I can push each other to improve and give our team the best chance of winning.” The player said, “I always tilted TL with my Soraka… now I want it to tilt other teams.”
Current support Matt said: “Recently, I’ve been able to get back into stride and I’m improving at an acceptable rate – I look forward to working with Adrian so we can push each other to be the best supports that we can.”
The team currently sits bottom of the standings in their region, which comes as a surprise to fans who expect their team to be contenders in the playoffs when the regular season draws to a close. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Team Liquid certainly find themselves in a desperate situation. It remains to be seen whether or not Team Liquid will promote Adrian to the starting lineup, and whether or not their round of roster changes will make the difference for them.