TSM Announce Shenyi and Keaiduo as Part of 2022 LCS Roster
The final piece of the LCS offseason puzzle has been found.
Team SoloMid has named Wong "Chawy" Xing Lei as its head coach for the 2022 LCS season. In the upcoming Spring Split, Chawy will oversee a roster consisting of top laner Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon, jungler Mingyi "Spica" Lu, mid laner Zhu "Keaiduo" Xiong, AD carry Edward "Tactical" Ra and support Wei "Shenyi" Zi-Jie.
Next season, how TSM performs on the rift will surely be one of the biggest storylines of North America after the offseason it's had.
After seeing $6 million-dollar support Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh and face of the franchise Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg depart the org, all while rivals Cloud9 and Team Liquid loaded up on talent once again in recent months, very few had a clue on who would be on TSM next year.
When Bjergsen's decision to leave the org was announced at the end of October, TSM CEO and Founder Andy “Reginald” Dinh and League of Legends General Manager Parth "Parth" Naidu mentioned they were looking at a variety of options for their LCS roster and intended to focus on up-and-coming players to build their culture around long-term, but not necessarily field an all-rookie development team.
With Huni being the team's newfound elder statesman at the age of 23, and two 19-year-olds on the roster as well at the time of writing, it appears that the TSM brain trust has delivered on their vision.
The new TSM roster managed to go this long without being leaked because it fields two young guns coming to North America out of the LDL. Both were reportedly discovered by TSM via an October scouting combine they held in Korea.
The complete professional track record of Keaiduo, 22, is as follows: playing for ThunderTalk Gaming Young last year.
"[Keaiduo] dominated our month-long scouting combine in Korea," TSM said on Twitter. "He stood out as the top-performing mid-laner, bringing an aggressive look and crisp teamfighting."
Shenyi, 19, competed with FunPlus Blaze in the LDL before spending the latter half of 2021 as a substitute for FunPlus Phoenix.
"[Shenyi] was our first choice at support from the moment he entered our scouting combine," TSM said on Twitter. "He showed us unparalleled proactivity, map control, and team coms, making him a key component of our team."
At the helm of the new group for TSM will be the 30-year-old Chawy, who has long been a relatively common figure in international League of Legends competition, most recently as the coach for Hong Kong Attitude at Worlds 2019.