Team Liquid are adding a sixth man to their League of Legends roster in the LTA after signing Ganbat “Yuuji” Ulziidelger to compete for the starting jungle role, according to reports by Sheep Esports.
The 22-year-old Mongolian is a well-known talent in the North American Challengers League (NACL), where he is a reigning champion and the only player in the division’s history to secure back-to-back MVP awards. The last three NACL pros who claimed the MVP award, FlyQuest bot lane duo Alan “Busio” Cwalina and Fahad “Massu” Abdulmalek as well as Niship “Dhokla” Doshi from Yilliang “Doubleflift” Peng’s Near Airport, have all gone on to record top eight finishes at LoL World Championships.
Yuuji was allegedly unable to find a team in the off-season due to issues with his residency and unfortunate timing, though the Sheep report suggests LTAN, LEC, and ERL teams were all interested in the Mongolion was who was judged by Riot to be given EMEA residency. While living in Mongolia, Yuuji made a name for himself as a special solo-queue talent who hit Diamond 1 while playing on the NA Server with 200 ping and Challenger on the EUW server while playing with 150 ping. He also previously competed in multiple roles, including support and midlaner, for his first team Bethany Lutheran College (a North American university team).
Yuuji will share his jungle role with South Korean jungler Um “UmTi” Sung-hyeon who is currently in his second year as a Team Liquid member. However, this won’t be a surprising change for UmTi as he had already been sharing scrim time with Yuuji for the last couple of months. According to Sheep Esports, Team Liquid held rushed tryouts for both midlaners and junglers following an early exit from the First Stand international tournament, with only three weeks until the LTA North Split 2 began. Alex “Toasty” Chea was considered for the mid lane while Yuuji tried out for jungle alongside James “Kisno” Woo. While Liquid didn’t immediately make any signings, they kept Yuuji around to occasionally play with them in scrims.
The team’s Head Coach, Jake “Spawn” Tiberi explained on the Sack Down podcast that this system allowed the team to examine and isolate their issues: “After First Stand we sat down and had a look at the mistakes we were making and we found it very difficult to tell whether they were individual mistakes or whether they were team or communication mistakes. So the easiest way to start identifying these problems is by swapping people in and out of the roster.
“But this is how I’ve always operated… I’m way more sports-team oriented. If you have a bad game, in an ideal world, I would have a person sitting behind you on the bench that I can bring in and sub for you.”
So far in Split 2, Team Liquid have struggled to find consistency. After recent performances, the team seem unlikely to qualify for the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), which will take place on NA soil with the event being hosted by Vancouver, Canada this year. The roster’s coaches will be hoping Yuuji can change that.
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