Team SoloMid has confirmed the rumors that surfaced a few days ago and officially signed Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett as its jungler for the 2020 League of Legends Championship Series.
TSM shared the news of Dardoch joining the new roster on Twitter, saying it was a long time coming and welcoming him to the team. The jungler is getting a new opportunity to prove his worth after playing the 2019 season mostly on the OpTic Gaming Academy roster, even though he hasn’t seen much success at the academy level with his team.
Dardoch tried joining TSM in the past as well. In the video TSM shared along with the announcement, Dardoch said he participated in team tryouts in 2016. However, he wasn’t accepted to the team and continued playing with Team Liquid instead, jumping between the main and academy rosters.
Since then, he has played for Immortals, Counter Logic Gaming, and Echo Fox, before eventually settling down with OpTic Gaming for the 2019 LCS. But with OpTic, he hasn’t consistently been on the main roster.
With OpTic transitioning to Immortals at the start of the 2019 season, Dardoch announced his free agency, and with many of the 2020 starting rosters being finalized, he has now been picked up by TSM as the team looks to reclaim its former glory.
“I played with a lot of players over my career, and have been on a lot of different teams, but what’s different about this one is that the goal from the get-go is that we’re expected to win,” Dardoch shared in the video announcement. “Our attitudes towards winning and our expectations for this season as a whole are very much aligned.”
Even though Dardoch has not yet been a key to a great winning team in his career to date, TSM fans have been supportive of his acquisition. This is mostly thanks to recent issues TSM has had with its junglers, switching between Mingyi “Spica” Lu, Jonathan “Grig” Armao, and Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham through the 2019 LCS season.
After an unsatisfying fifth-place regular season finish and no qualification for the 2019 Worlds, one of the most popular North American teams has a lot to prove going into the new year. Fans believe TSM’s lack of success was at least in part due to weak jungling, and Dardoch might be just what they need to get back to the top.
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