TSM Announce Their LCS Roster for the 2023 Season

TSM reveal their LCS roster for the next year of competition.

2022 hasn’t been kind to TSM. One of the most storied organizations in LCS history, TSM had a disastrous two splits in a row. It started with losing the face of the franchise, Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg to Team Liquid in his return to pro play. The organization also had multiple off-the-Rift problems involving their CEO Andy “Reginald” Dinh and former head coach Zhang “Peter Zhang” Yi, resulting in them missing playoffs in Spring and only finishing 5-6th in Summer. And with these poor results, TSM had to say goodbye to their MVP jungler, Mingyi “Spica” Lu, who decided not to renew his contract.

Unfortunately for the long-time TSM fans who hoped to climb their way back to the top of the league in 2023, it looks like that won’t be the case, at least not immediately. TSM’s 2023 LCS roster was already reported previously, but in a tweet today the organization confirmed their starting five for the year. And with multiple mid-table teams spending big and building contenders e.g. FlyQuest and Dignitas, TSM’s 2023 roster seems to be lacking the talent to contest for the trophy.

Colin “Solo” Earnest
Lee “Bugi” Seong-yeop
Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang
Toàn “Neo” Trần
Jonathan “Chime” Pomponio

Introducing our starting LCS roster for the 2023 season.@ChawyWong @SoloLCS @yeopbugi @TSMMaple @ukpneo @LoLChime pic.twitter.com/zqjMzUxaFd

— TSM #TSM100 (@TSM) November 29, 2022

There were already some questions about how big TSM could spend with the recent news of their big sponsor FTX, previously the second biggest cryptocurrency exchange, going bankrupt. And while the organization assured their fans these events wouldn’t impact the League of Legends division of the company, it didn’t necessarily mean they would be spending either.

The biggest signing for TSM’s 2023 roster is their new jungler Bugi. The Korean jungler started his career in Japan and was previously on teams such as Flash Wolves and V3 Esports. He played at Worlds 2022 with the LLA team Estral Esports where he put up a decent showing during the Play-In stage. While certainly a good player, the LCS jungle pool is one of the strongest positions in the league and it will be hard for Bugi to be able to make an impact from the get-go. Especially considering he has to fill the shoes of Spica, who most fans thought would be the next franchise player for TSM.

TSM also signed with the previous Dignitas bot laner Neo, who was seen as one of the up-and-coming AD Carries in North America, up until Dignitas benched him in the Summer due to his unsatisfactory performance. While Neo has shown that he has the talent to be one of the better ADCs in LCS, it is important to remember he looked his best with veteran supports like Vincent “Biofrost” Wang and Zaqueri “aphromoo” Black. And while Chime did play great in the Summer after he joined TSM late last split, he is still a very young player himself.

Another question mark about TSM is what will happen if any player underperforms and they need a substitute, as they released their entire Academy team at the start of this November. Currently, the organization doesn’t have an Academy, or now an NACL team, but they said in their announcement tweet that there will be more information coming about it and their staff, after the LCS roster is done with their Korean bootcamp in December.