After narrowly missing qualification for Worlds 2022 and falling short of fan expectations for Team Liquid as a super team, Bwipo is staying with TL as a content creator and taking a break from pro play.
Team Liquid was the NA superteam at the start of 2022. With a roster full of veteran import talent that cost TL millions of dollars, this team was expected to perform.
While their Fourth place victory wasn’t a bad finish, it wasn’t the success that was expected. Because of this, Team Liquid was eliminated just shy of qualifying for Worlds, losing 2-3 to EG.
Now, with everyone but Gabriël ‘Bwipo’ Rau and Jo ‘CoreJJ’ Yong-in having left the organization, Bwipo has confirmed he will be sticking around as a content creator and taking the split off.
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Bwipo taking a break from pro play
While Bwipo made it clear that he is going to be “tryharding in solo queue and champions queue to find a team” in a conversation on his Twitch stream, there isn’t a chance we see him on a team this split.
Bwipo’s been competing consistently since 2015, with Fnatic being the org that he really made a name for himself on and stayed with from 2018-2021. After such a long-standing career, what made Bwipo decide to take a break?
“I just didn’t stand out enough. Means I have to play better.“
Bwipo isn’t just a top laner, either. He roleswapped to jungle for Fnatic during a tumultuous 2021 for the team and heavily outperformed expectations.
Their worlds run that year wasn’t that great due to Elias ‘Upset’ Lipp not being able to make it to the event, but they managed to climb all the way to second place for the 2021 Summer Playoffs. Not bad for a top laner’s first roleswap to jungle.
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Additionally, according to LEC Wooloo’s reply to a tweet talking about Bwipo’s roleswap, this was considered for his off-season.
Bwipo has also confirmed that he got an offer from Vitality early in the off-season, one that he didn’t end up taking despite verbally agreeing to it.
“I reached out to all 10 LCS teams, they did not want me. Even though I had a great offer from Vitality, it came too early in the off-season for me to be comfortable making a decision. Because I moved my whole life here. Because I expected to stay on Team Liquid.”
Bwipo didn’t sign on to Team Liquid for just one year, he signed for two. This means that his contract doesn’t expire until 2023.
“When push came to shove, they decided to go in a different direction. Which is ok. I wasn’t ready yet without having the possibility to explore LCS offers to take an EU offer, which really sucks.”
He elaborated on Vitality’s offer in the same clip. “It’s not because Vitality’s offer was bad, it was very good, actually. It was very tempting. I even verbally said that I was going to, but I pulled out because I wasn’t ready yet.”
There was clearly off-season demand for the veteran EU top laner, just not in North America. Whether or not he’s able to find a home in the Summer split remains to be seen.
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