Team SoloMid League of Legends Team Profile
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Team SoloMid is a professional eSports organization hailing from the United States. They were founded in September 2009 by the brothers Andy “Reginald” Dinh and Dan “Dan Dinh” Dinh. The brothers also established the community website SoloMid.Net, around which the team was originally centered.
TSM currently has teams competing in League of Legends, Hearthstone, Heroes of Warcraft, Vainglory and Super Smash Bros., while they previously also held teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offense and Overwatch.
Their League of Legends team is easily considered to be one of the best teams in North America: SoloMid won 5 Splits in the North American League of Legends Championships Series (LCS). In addition to this, they appeared at every NALCS Finals and have been steady part of the League of Legends World Championship since their formation in 2011. Here is a short overview of the team’s history.
Team SoloMid History
2011
Before he formed Team SoloMid, Reginald was part of the All or Nothing. The team was disbanded and thus paved the way for TSM, which would be a support to the Solomid.net website. The first player roster consisted of Reginald, Saintvicious, Chaox, TheOddOne and Locodoco.
However, in February, Saintvicious would eventually leave the team to join Counter Logic Gaming. The team picked up substitutions to fill their ranks, and in April added Xpecial and The Rain Main to fill the void ranks.
The team consisting of Reginal, TheOddOne, Chaox, Xpecial, and The Rain Main went on to compete at the Riot Season 1 Championship in June 2011. They managed to secure the first place in their group. In the double elimination playoffs of the semifinals they faced the French team against All authority. They suffered a defeat and were knocked into the loser’s bracket.
There, they would meet the fellow American team Epik Gamer, claiming the win, and entering the loser bracket finals. Once again, they were up against aAa, and once again lost a close match. aAa ended up winning the series, with TSM ending up in 3rd place, earning $10,000 in prize money.
2012
In 2012, the first event TSM attended was the IEM Season IV – Global Challenge Kiev. Here, they secured the second place after losing to Moscow Five. In March, 2 months after the Kiev event, The Rain Man would depart from the team due to conflicts with the training regimen of the team, his goal being his own training instead of the team.
Dyrus, who had already been a part of TSM, living in their team house while playing for Epik Gamer, took his place. This change in the team lineup led to TSM becoming the strongest team in North America and one of the strongest all around the globe. They would go on to either win or rank high in all LAN events for the rest of the year. They managed to win MLG Anaheim, IPL 4, IPL Face Off: San Francisco and GIGABYTE Esports LAN.
2013
Along with Dignitas and Counter Logic Gaming, TSM received an automatic seed for the inaugural North American League Championship Series, having previously attended Season 2 World Championship. SoloMid managed to earn a high win rate of 75% during the spring round robin.
In the playoffs, they beat CLG and Vulcun, making it to the finals, only to lose to fellow North American team Cloud9. This would start their bitter rivalry and battle to become the leading North American LoL team. However, this time around, Cloud9 would have to pack their bags and leave the World Championship after the quarterfinals, while TSM didn’t even make it past the group stage.
2014
During the Spring Split, TSM managed to fare better than they had in their Season 3 Summer Split, ending the round robin with a 22-6 record. However, in the finals they ended up losing to Cloud9 once more. TheOddOne decided to leave the team and retire from eSports in general. Also, Xpecial was repaced by Gleeb, a former member of Cloud9 Tempest.
These changes in the lineup showed that the team suffered during the Summer Split. They managed to rebound from a poor performance when they replaced Gleeb with Lustboy, winning the playoffs with 3-2 and finally defeating Cloud9.
They would then receive the North American top seed to the World Championship, and came in at the second place in their group. In the quarterfinals, they would then go on to lose against Samsung White, who ended up winning the tournament.
2015
TSM would start the 2015 Spring Split with an 8-2 record, and thus standing in first place. This secured them an invite to IEM Season IX World Championship. In the tournament, they defeated Team WE, CJ Entus and yoe Flash Wolves to make it into the finals of the event. There, they managed to once more defeat Team WE and took the title, pocketing $108,414 in prize money.
This marked the first time since Chicks Dig ELo and the 2011 World Cyber Games that a North American team managed to win an international event with Korean teams also competing. They were also the first Western team to earn this honor ever since Gambit Gaming won the IEM Katowice in 2013.
TSM would go on to win their third North American championship, defeating Team Impulse and Cloud9 in the process, and tying Cloud9 for the most North American LCS championships up to then. This secured them the North American seed to the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational. However, there, they would only win in one match during the group stage and wouldn’t qualify for the playoffs.
After almost not making it to the Worlds after several substantial losses, they still managed to get the due to their Championship Points. With that, they faced off against LGD Gaming, Origen and KT Rolster in their group. They finished last in the group with the 1-5 score, while both the Korean and European teams advanced further. This also led Dyrus to fully retire from the sport.
2016
Team SoloMid were off to a rocky start in 2016, losing both in Europe and North America at tournaments. However, after some improvement in the team, they went on to beat Cloud9 in the quarterfinals and Immortals in the semifinals of the LCS 2016 North American Spring Playoffs.
They would face off in the finals against Counter Logic Gaming, which became even more of a rivalry since Doublelift had previously shifted to TSM from CLG. CLG would ultimately win this time and TSM would not be heading for the Mid-Season Invitational.
Before the Summer Season, TSM would sign Biofrost, who displayed remarkable skills despite being a LCS rookie. In the playoffs they would sweep CLG with 3-0, and Cloud9 with 3-1 in the finals, which qualified them for the World Championship as the first North American seed. There they would perform badly, which soon prompted Doublelift to leave the active roster before the 2017 Spring Split.
2017
In 2017, Doublelift returned to the team and his position as AD, but did not compete at MSI.
Current Player Roster
- Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell (Top)
- Yiliang “Doublelift“ Peng (AD)
- Brian “TheOddOne“ Wyllie (Sub/Jungle)
- Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen (Jungle)
- Vincent “Biofrost “ Wang (Support)
- Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg (Mid)
- Andy “Reginald” Dinh (Sub/Mid)