There’s always plenty of drama going on in sports, and esports is no different. In a recent stream, Christian “IWillDominate” Rivera – often simply called Dom – criticized professional League of Legends player Yiliang “Peter” Peng, AKA Doublelift, for his careless attitude regarding the current Spring Split competitive season.
Doublelift plays for Team Liquid as their starting AD Carry and has played through the tournament except for being replaced recently by Edward “Tactical” Ra after the former contracted laryngitis. However, previous to his benching due to illness, Doublelift received a considerable amount of critique for his attitude in an interview earlier this Spring season.
After having a somewhat poor showing for the start of the season, Doublelift commented on a recorded interview that he cared little about the Spring season, as the team wouldn’t be getting points towards Worlds for it. While the player acknowledged that losing never feels good and he would always prefer to win, he seemed to assert that he was, in plain words, bigger than the Spring Split and had won it so many times it had practically ceased to matter.
Doublelift has been replaced by Tactical for now, of whom has had a good showing since taking the chair. While the team (and Doublelift) said that the replacement was due to Doublelift falling sick, many fans online think that the player may have been benched for his negative and careless attitude towards the competition, though there is no evidence to support this.
In response to being asked whether he thought that Team Liquid would be able to perform well with Tactical, streamer Dom stated that he believed it was better to have Tactical in over Doublelift at the moment. The main reason for this, he claims, is that it’s better to have a player who cares than one who doesn’t, even if the player who doesn’t care is technically better.
“I feel like it’s healthy having a player who cares in. Even if you say in a vacuum, ‘Tactical isn’t as good as Doublelift,’ the fact that Doublelift went on camera and admitted that he didn’t care about the season – it’s so much better to have a player like Tactical who is going to give it his all. When your player says that, I feel like, ‘okay, let somebody else play who actually wants to play.’ No matter how good you are, most of the time it’ll be more beneficial to have someone who cares in than someone who doesn’t care.”
Dom raises good points, and it makes you wonder whether you would rather have an amazing player not trying, or a great player giving it their all. It remains unknown if Doublelift will get his seat back when he’s back in good health, but for now, no TL fans seem upset about having Tactical in the chair after winning their last two games with him.
