According to the official League of Legends Global Contract Database, Team Liquid will be able to start their full roster for Week 3 of the League Championship Series, including their World Champion support, Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in, who is now listed as an LCS resident.
Headed into the season, Team Liquid had three imports: their newly signed top and bot laners, Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau and Steven “Hans sama” Liv, as well as their longest-standing member, CoreJJ himself. The roster was filled out by Lucas “Santorin” Larsen and Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg, who are both European but have held North American residency for a few years.
The LCS official rules state that no team may field a roster consisting of three or more imports, which means that Team Liquid could not simultaneously play Bwipo, Hans sama and CoreJJ. Liquid signed them all, however, because they were working on obtaining a green card for CoreJJ, which would allow him to declare his professional League residency as North American rather than Korean.
Through the Lock In tournament and the first two weeks of the LCS, Liquid were forced to use one substitute for each of their games. In the Lock In, they played three different versions of their roster, subbing out each of their imports one at a time and replacing them with their Academy counterparts.
Headed into the final stages of the Lock In, and through the first two weeks of the LCS, Liquid decided to stick to one single version of that substitute roster, playing with Bill “Eyla” Nguyen as their main support and keeping Hans sama and Bwipo on the starting five. With Eyla starting for the team, Liquid won the 2022 LCS Lock In.
Team Liquid General Manager Jun “Dodo” Kang tweeted out a picture of Twisted Fate holding a green card — rather than red, blue or gold — hinting that they’d received their support’s green card approval. The team hasn’t made an official announcement yet, but the Global Contract Database reflects his residency status as North American. This means Riot Games has approved him to start as a non-import in the LCS.
— Jun Kang (@TL_Dodo) February 16, 2022
Update: Team Liquid declined to comment. This is an ongoing story.
