All of YukaF former teammates are in the bottom 10 of the overall leaderboard
Right after Riddle got confirmed for relegation from Pro League, I checked the overall standings and noticed something crazy. All of former YukaF teammates are sitting in the bottom 10.
- Lible_Ace and Lykq on GROW Gaming
- Umi on TIE
- Kernel Garcia on Fnatic
- Meltstera on Riddle
Riddle’s struggles were somewhat expected, but getting relegated entirely is still shocking me. Even with a mediocre roster on paper, I thought they would at least survive until Regional Finals because they had Kamaneko, who’s well known for team building. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to help Meltstera adjust to being a first-year IGL in PL.
Garcia’s situation on Fnatic feels similar. He also became a new IGL this year, but honestly, his circumstances looked much better than Meltstera’s. He had ILY, who placed 3rd at Year 5 Champs, and he reunited with Ein. At the start of the season, I genuinely thought this roster could finish top 10 comfortably. Instead, the whole project completely collapsed. I honestly don’t even know where to begin when talking about what went wrong with this team.
TIE is harder to judge because they mostly stuck together from last year, and I haven’t been able to watch many of their VODs lately since the players barely upload content anymore. Umi has always been known as a less flexible player dating back to his Fnatic days, so I can see the legend bans affecting him more than others. Their zone-heavy playstyle also feels very hit or miss. Maybe they simply got outplayed by the newer gen teams and players. Being stuck in Group C definitely didn’t help either.
Ace and Lykq are probably the biggest disappointment on this list. GROW desperately needs a real coach instead of having the owner cosplay as one. Their chemistry has looked terrible all season and never really improved. Individually, the players are strong, but they’ve never managed to properly click on gamedays. It honestly feels like Lykq has been trying to fix all the team issues by himself, and it still hasn’t worked. Seriously, just hire an actual coach already.
Fortunately, Fnatic, TIE, and GROW still have one more gameday this week, so there’s still a chance for them to turn things around. I really don’t want to see any more of them get relegated.
But it does leave one big question:
Why did all of these players fell off so badly after splitting up with YukaF?