Every North American League of Legends Championship Series split for Team SoloMid has been different in some way -- new roster, placement in the standings, coaching changes -- but all nine thus far, spanning over almost four years, have ended the same: TSM in the finals.
On Sunday, TSM will mark its ninth straight trip to the NA LCS finals with its sixth final -- no, this is not a typo -- against rival Cloud9 for regional supremacy and a place at the Mid-Season Invitational in Brazil.
Before "T-S-M! T-S-M!" chants flood the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, here is a trip down memory lane of the nine NA LCS seasons that have all ended with the men in black and white playing in the ultimate match, and usually playing Cloud9.
Spring 2013 theme: A new frontier
The first NA LCS season was a major shift for Team SoloMid, the esports organization that became famous through its "Baylife" tagline, carefree style, player vlogs on YouTube and top finishes across the board in domestic and international competitions. With the creation of the NA LCS, League of Legends as an esport in North America was brought to a new level, and the workload to go along with it was upped accordingly.
For marksman Shan "Chaox" Huang, the change in atmosphere and practicing wasn't easy to transition into, and by midseason the team tried out solo queue standout Jason "WildTurtle" Tran as a possible substitute or replacement. A Pentakill later, and WildTurtle took over the starting job for TSM, which cruised to a top place finish in the regular-season standings.
Come playoffs, the new TSM with WildTurtle made its way through the semifinals to play against surprise finalist Good Game University. GGU, the No.6 seed that season, is still to this day the only non-TSM, C9 or Counter Logic Gaming club to make a NA LCS final. In the final itself, GGU put up an admirable fight, forcing TSM to all five games before running out of gas and taking a knee to the inaugural North American League of Legends Championship Series league champion.
Summer 2013 theme: The blue and white supernova
The main character of the 2013 summer season was not TSM, but a rookie juggernaut which would run roughshod over the league in its first season. TSM, keeping its starting roster from the title win over GGU, was more of a side character this season, getting eclipsed by not only Cloud9, but Vulcun as well, treading water en route to a .500 record in the regular-season.
Come playoff time, of course TSM would make the final, defeating Vulcun in the second straight NA LCS semifinal. That's where the happiness for the defending champion ended. The final was a slaughter. C9, a team that only dropped three maps the entire season, dissected TSM in every facet of the game and stole the title from the initial winner. TSM didn't just kneel to C9 like GGU did TSM the season before -- C9 knocked TSM out and showed the difference in class between the new guard and the old.
Spring 2014 theme: The arrival of the Danish ace
The season following C9's decimation of TSM brought about a major change to the wounded king. Reginald, the team's founder and starting mid laner, retired from professional play to focus on running the team, and chose his replacement, Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, a Danish teenager from the European LCS. The mid laner had wowed fans in his first year in the pros on Copenhagen Wolves, and his move to NA was seen as the first major import in NA LCS history.
Bjergsen didn't let Reginald down, and TSM kept up with the superpowered C9 throughout the season, barely missing the first spot in the regular-season standings and settling for second. In the playoffs, the team made CLG its third victim in the NA LCS semifinals, defeating it 2-1. Yet, when the final was played, the same story unfolded. This time C9 mid laner Hai "Hai" Lam lead his team 3-0 in a sweep over TSM newcomer Bjergsen in the first of many clashes between the two NA LCS legends.
Summer 2014 theme: Chaos reigns
TSM, for the most part, was stable throughout the first three seasons of the NA LCS and gave ample time for Bjergsen to take over, to fully replace Reginald. The 2014 summer season by comparison was nothing short of anarchy.
After losing to C9 in back-to-back finals, TSM was not going to lose for a third split in a row. The team brought in German import Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider for longtime starter Brian "OddOne" Wyllie, and then changed up the bottom lane, switching out Alex "Xpecial" Chu for rookie Nicolas "Gleebglarbu" Haddad. After keeping up with C9 for a majority of the spring split, TSM fell back into the middle of the pack with its drastically different starting lineup. It once again finished third in the standings, this time behind C9 and all-Chinese club LMQ.
However, before the regular-split ended, the org decided to make another big change, this time removing Gleebglarbu from the lineup and replacing him with former South Korean champion Ham "Lustboy" Jang-sik. It was the right decision at the right time, and the team flew into the playoffs with confidence, rolling through the quarterfinals and semifinals (LMQ became semifinal victim number 4) before taking on C9 in the final for the third straight postseason.
Finally, TSM overcame Hai and C9, and Bjergsen won his first domestic championship. Although Bjergsen took over the season before, this was truly his team for the first time, and the final doubled as his ascent to the top of the league as its best player.
Spring 2015 theme: Clouds falling
In the summer of 2013, C9 forced TSM to make substantial changes in the starting roster. The spring of 2015 was TSM's opportunity to do the same to C9. In its first league win in over a year, TSM kept its rhythm up in the new year, finishing first in the standings with nearly the same lineup it trotted out to dethrone C9 the previous final. The only change was the introduction of Danish jungler Lucas "Santorin" Larsen to replace Amazing in the jungle.
Team Impulse had its name written down as the fifth victim of TSM in the semifinals, and then the stage was set for the fourth season in a row: TSM vs. C9 in the NA LCS final. Bjergsen and the rest of the team took its rival to task for the second straight championship match, and although C9 won the first game, it dropped the next three to lose back-to-back finals to TSM, tying the overall record between the two sides in the playoffs at a pair apiece.
C9 needed to make huge changes, and TSM, alone at the top of the mountain with the word "dynasty" floating around, had no worries in the world. Its main rival was rebuilding, LMQ had combusted, and there was no club left in North America with any faith left in itself.
Well, except one...
Summer 2015 theme: The faith era begins
Well, about that whole TSM dynasty thing -- it didn't go down that way. The joy of spring was quickly erased come the summer months, and the club struggled to get into the playoffs, finishing in fifth overall in the standings. Everything that seemed to work in the spring split was now falling apart at the seams in the summer. TSM's reliance on Bjergsen was becoming apparent to every team in the league, and teams began to punish the defending league champion for its linear style of play.
With that being said, it wouldn't be an NA LCS season without TSM making the finals, and stubbornly the team made it. After dispatching Gravity in the quarterfinals, Team Liquid, the winner of the regular-season title, was the next semifinal victim of TSM. The forever fourths lost their best chance to ever make final by losing to TSM 3-1.
At Madison Square Garden, the venue for the final that season, it would not be C9 standing in TSM's way. C9, going through a complete overhaul, didn't even finish in the top six, not making the playoffs and having to watch from home. Instead, it was longstanding and LCS inaugural franchise Counter Logic Gaming in its first NA LCS final.
And like two years prior, TSM got knocked out on the finals stage. CLG didn't waste its opportunity; TSM lost in an embarrassing sweep.
Spring 2016 theme: ("Super") Team SoloMid
Before TSM would have its most successful season in the NA LCS, it would need to have its worst. The loss to CLG at Madison Square Garden forced wholesale changes in the starting roster, most notably bringing in the AD carry who defeated TSM in New York, Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng," as the team's new starter. He was paired with legendary support Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim from EU, which should have been a great duo. The team on paper was one of the better "super teams" you could create without importing a top player from South Korea.
The results didn't, well, result to much, however. It took the entire season and part of the playoffs for the starting five to finally find some semblance of chemistry, and the bottom lane never reached the impact level it was supposed to have on the league. TSM finished at a disappointing sixth in the standings at a 9-9, the worst placement for the team in NA LCS history, and limped into the playoffs.
As you've come to expect, TSM made it through to the finals, knocking off C9 (the first time the two teams didn't meet in the finals in the playoffs) and then top seed, heavily favored-but-choked Immortals (victim No.7), in a sweep to make a seventh straight final. TSM tried its luck at keeping the run alive at the finals in Las Vegas against CLG, a team that had adopted a "team first" credo to combat TSM's all-star lineup mentality.
It wouldn't be a sweep this time, but CLG still left Vegas as winners, beating TSM 3-2 in a thrilling final to become back-to-back winners. TSM had improved mightily over the span of a single season, and the best was yet to come in the summer.
Summer 2016 theme: Unstoppable
Domination. That is the only way to describe TSM in the summer of 2016. The club manhandled every team in the league, and it only dropped a single best-of-three in the new NA LCS format, losing to upstart organization Phoenix1 after already securing the top seed heading into the playoffs.
Vincent "Biofrost" Wang was the only addition to TSM coming into the summer split. The team could have gone for another big splash with an import, but instead scooped up an interesting support prospect from the minor leagues. Biofrost and Doublelift created a partnership that the TSM fans wanted the previous split, and the rest of the team kept up its synergy from the previous season's playoff run to create a team with little-to-no issues on the domestic stage.
The playoffs seemed like a coronation of sorts. The semifinal was a simple 3-0 over CLG, and the finals in Toronto, another versus C9, was somewhat competitive, but ended almost the same way, TSM winning its fourth league title by a scoreline of 3-1.
Spring 2017 theme: Unpredictable
*At the time of this writing.
Which brings us to today. The story so far for TSM this split:
Doublelift took a short sabbatical from professional play, and TSM alumni WildTurtle rejoined the team. Doublelift returned to be loaned out to Team Liquid for the remainder of the spring split to save the club from relegation ... which nearly happened anyway.
TSM lost the first game of best-of-threes a lot.
Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell emerged as a shot-caller and one of the best players in the league.
Bjergsen was Bjergsen, as usual.
FlyQuest became semifinal victim No.9.
And that's where we sit going into another final in Canada. The more things change, the more they stay the same: TSM vs. C9 in the NA LCS final, and the future of both teams, as we've seen before, hang in the balance of which team can outdo the other for the league title.
The next chapter title of TSM for summer will start to be written on Sunday.