Through the turmoil happening with TSM at the ownership level, the League of Legends Championship Series team has also been thrown through the wringer and made headlines again to kick off Week 4 of the 2022 LCS summer split.
The squad announced they were shifting their roster once more. This time, TSM brought in three rookies, including Academy bot laner Tony “Instinct” Ng. The young player had quite the week going, from playing in Academy to playing on the big stage with a support who he has only been playing with for a week.
Instinct’s response? Casually getting a pentakill in his second-ever LCS game.
WHERE HAVE YOU SEEN A @TSM ADC GET A PENTAKILL IN THEIR FIRST WEEK BEFORE?! #LCS #TSMWIN pic.twitter.com/MCwS3OIGlQ
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) July 17, 2022
“After the first two kills, I was screaming pentakill after chasing down the tanks,” Instinct said.
Instinct found out he would replace Edward “Tactical” Ra on the main roster around the same time TSM made their official statement earlier in the week. After going through one of the most hectic weeks of his life up to this point, Instinct said he’s just taking everything in stride.
“I think playing in the LCS was definitely a fun experience,” Instinct said. “The first day I had some nerves, but I wasn’t really that scared or nervous. I was just playing with confidence.”
In a game that no one had expectations for, including Instinct himself, the new look TSM roster with less than a week of practice managed to take down one of the best-performing teams in the league, FlyQuest. Instinct said going into the game that he knew what FlyQuest wanted to do. He noted that while many have praised the FlyQuest bot lane in recent weeks, he knew they weren’t going to pressure him or be proactive in lane.
After shutting down their “farm and scale” win condition, TSM picked up their third win of the split and Instinct’s first of his career.
“It feels good because I know a lot of people doubted us as individuals,” Instinct said. “It feels good proving people wrong, and we’re really fast learners, so we improve really fast.”
TSM’s performance to round out Week 4 of the LCS summer split was night and day from their first game as a new team against Cloud9. Everybody stepped up. Top laner Cheng “Alex” “S0ul” Luo had really good engages on Gnar, but so did former Golden Guardians Academy support Jonathan “Chime” Pomponio, who shined on Rakan for TSM.
Despite only playing with each other for a week or so, Instinct said he thinks the new players’ synergy is already LCS level.
“I think we’re just really good individual players and we take criticisms really well,” Instinct said. “We just learn really fast together.”
Instinct said he could get used to playing on the stage with the fans cheering him on. TSM said in their roster change announcement that they were open to picking up another bot laner in case Instinct wasn’t ready, but so far it seems that he is.
Next, Instinct wants to take a shot at Team Liquid Honda.
“I think TL has five strong really good individuals,” Instinct said. “I want to try to see how strong we can stand up to them.”
