Picture Credit score: Group Liquid / YouTube
North American League of Legends has lots of iconic faces, however just one man can declare he constructed a dynasty out of sheer vanity and exact mechanics. Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng is formally coming again to Group Liquid.
He’s not choosing up his mouse to play on stage this time, however moderately signing a two-year deal as a full-time content material creator.
The announcement video featured Doublelift wandering via the Group Liquid facility, casually searching for gadgets he left behind throughout his enjoying days. “Let’s lower to the chase,” he joked within the sketch. “No extra ‘I’m coming again to select up some stuff I left behind,’ like my peripherals. And I left my trophies. Man, you guys haven’t gotten so many of those with out me, huh?”
He even discovered his notorious, unused “Flash from Worlds” stashed away in a drawer, dryly noting that he plans to “reserve it for subsequent 12 months.”
Re-igniting the Golden Period
For anybody who watched the LCS between 2018 and 2019, this reunion hits the nostalgia candy spot. Doublelift’s historical past with Group Liquid is the stuff of legend. Earlier than he arrived, Liquid was a corporation famously trapped in a fourth-place curse, persistently lacking out on the largest trophies.
When Doublelift joined full-time in 2018, he essentially modified the group’s trajectory. He led them to 4 consecutive home championships, picked up an LCS MVP award, and secured a historic second-place end on the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational after pulling off a large upset towards Invictus Gaming.
“I all the time sustain with LCS,” Doublelift defined. “I type of wish to be just like the man in the case of co-streaming LCS, proper? And I type of wish to be just like the NA League of Legends man.”
He famous that he needed a workforce affiliation much like how European streamer Caedrel is linked with the area’s high stars.
“Group Liquid made probably the most sense to me as a result of you understand I’ve probably the most historical past with the workforce and I feel the workforce was most profitable with me on it. There was type of like a golden period in League esports.”
Leaving the Drama Behind
In fact, the street wasn’t fully clean. His departure from Liquid in 2020 was a bit messy, leading to a commerce again to TSM after a disappointing Spring Break up. He additionally had some notable offseason friction with Liquid’s administration a couple of years later.
Trying again, the veteran ADC views these tough patches as essential steps in his journey.
“I feel generally getting kicked off the workforce is just like the kick within the pants you want as a professional participant to identical to get disciplined once more,” Doublelift admitted. “Often getting kicked off the workforce for me was like a wakeup name like issues want to alter, like I must get higher.”
As for any lingering awkwardness with administration? That’s fully previously.
“I did have some drama with Dodo like a couple of years in the past within the offseason and stuff, however you understand, we talked, we each stated sorry, and we moved on like adults,” he stated. “So, I feel like all in all, I’ve an excellent relationship with just about everybody on Group Liquid.”
The Final Retirement Village
The brand new partnership is about extra than simply watch events. Backed by company sponsors, Doublelift is utilizing Liquid’s large infrastructure to host a large group occasion. He’s launching his personal “Retirement Residence Event” on June 27 and 28, streaming stay on his private Twitch channel.
“Operating a event, it’s an enormous enterprise,” Doublelift stated. “It’s a must to get all of the expertise, you must get the manufacturing, you must get the administration and administration and logistics performed and get everybody’s flights and all this and that. And it’s identical to, woah, that is like one thing I’ve by no means performed earlier than.”
Working with a longtime group permits him to take artistic dangers with out personally burning via his financial savings to fund manufacturing. He emphasised that content material creation requires fixed reinvention to outlive. “When you simply do the identical factor each single day for the remainder of your streaming profession, your stream’s going to die. That’s simply how it’s,” he famous.
He may be retired from the professional stage, however Doublelift continues to be treating content material like an lively aggressive queue. The LCS co-streams simply bought much more fascinating, and the principle character of NA is lastly again in blue.
