Mid laner Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang is expected to join TSM for the League of Legends Championship Series summer split, sources told Upcomer on Friday.
Maple will replace TSM mid laner Zhu “Keaiduo” Xiong following a ninth-place finish for TSM in the LCS. TSM also considered former Cloud9 and Team Liquid mid laner Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen as a summer split option. TSM are also acquiring former Estral Esports support Choi “Mia” Sang-in, as reported by Upcomer.
Maple is a name that most long-time League of Legends esports fans have heard. During his career, the 24-year-old Taiwan native qualified six times to the League of Legends World Championship and four times for the Mid-Season Invitational.
Maple spent most of his early years in professional play with Flash Wolves, a team that competed in Taiwan and dominated the now-defunct League Masters Series for most of the mid-2010s. Flash Wolves were often dark horses internationally and sometimes called South Korean-killers as they often upset South Korean teams throughout the years on the international stage.
After failing to make it past the group stage at the 2018 world championship, Maple ended up leaving Flash Wolves. He then played for two years in the League of Legends Pro League in China with Suning in 2019 and LNG Esports in 2020. In the LPL, Maple had pretty average results. While he made it once to playoffs with Suning, he also finished 16th place with LNG Esports in spring of 2020.
Following two years in the LPL, Maple returned to his home region to compete with PSG Talon in the Pacific Championship Series. During that year, PSG managed to finish first place in both spring and summer. While PSG made it to the semifinals of MSI of 2021, they didn’t make it past the group stages at the world championship.
This spring, Maple returned to China with Anyone’s Legend, which finished 13th in the LPL. The team announced his departure from the squad April 10.
