Doublelift claims that Dodo, the Team Liquid’s current General Manager, actively blocked him from being on the team during negotiations to get both him and jojopyun on their 2024 roster.
It’s impossible to deny Doublelift’s GOAT status within the LCS. His and Bjergsen’s retirement marked the end of an era in the league, during which some of the last players from the LCS’ early days stepped down to pursue other things.
However, it seems that Doublelift’s retirement was a result of more than just his wanting to exit the LCS; he, at one point, wanted to join Team Liquid. This may explain how his attitude switched from wanting to stay in the LCS for 2024 to wanting to leave the league entirely just months later.
Doublelift claims that during negotiations with Team Liquid, General Manager Dodo “put his job on the line” to make sure he wasn’t able to join Team Liquid’s 2024 roster.
Doublelift claims Team Liquid has “underhanded” management
During his LCS costream on March 9, Doublelift made a vague reference to an LCS team manager that lied to players, with his chat goading him on to tell the story.
Initially, he shut down their requests & claimed it’d start a “war.” But Doublelift’s partner, Leena, ran on stream and told him why he should reveal what happened behind the scenes.
“You’re never gonna play again, and you shouldn’t care about exposing the person who was lying to multiple players,” she claimed. Doublelift left it up to chance, flipped a coin, and landed on the side he called. So, he stuck to his word and gave his account of what happened in the off-season with Team Liquid.
Doublelift claimed that he was approached by Steve, Team Liquid’s CEO, to make an “Exodia” roster, and that he personally picked jojopyun as his ideal mid laner. However, after talking with Jojo himself, Doublelift was confused as to why it was taking TL so long to approach the star mid laner.
After discussing how he’d only be willing to stay in the LCS if he was on the “perfect” roster, Doublelift claimed that Team Liquid’s general manager, Dodo, barred him from joining the roster entirely and revealed his intentions when TL management eventually spoke with jojopyun.
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“Jojo asks about me, and was like, ‘What about Doublelift?’ At no point during the talk did Dodo mention I’d be part of the team potentially. And then Dodo says, ‘The only way that we would get Doublelift on the team is if I’m not on the team anymore. We’re not getting him. There’s no way.’ And then Jojo was like, ‘Whoa, that’s weird.'”
That’s around where the clip cuts off, but his tale went a bit longer than that.
“[Dodo] said, ‘If Doublelift joins this team, either I’m gonna have to quit my job or they’re gonna have to fire me,'” Doublelift claimed.
The former LCS star then went to Team Liquid’s CEO himself to try and clear things up, but no changes were made according to his account.
“I’m like, ‘Yo Steve, I think something’s wrong, there must be a miscommunication or something, but you told me that we’re trying to explore this option. It’s a bit of a hail mary, I get it, but I don’t know if this is being done in the right way like you envisioned it.'”
He called out Dodo for being “underhanded,” though he did reveal that Dodo sent him an apology later in the off-season that, according to Doublelift’s retelling, went something like this:
“[Dodo] said it was ‘in the gist of the moment’ and that he acted that way to ‘convince Jojo in the moment.’
None of the involved Team Liquid members have responded to Doublelift’s accusations.
