Doublelift on retirement: “Andy didn’t let me play”

LCS superstar Peng “Doublelift” Yilang’s retirement was a shock to many League of Legends fans, who saw the veteran AD carry as one of the few consistent competitors in North American professional play.

There had previously been discussion of Doublelift retiring because he thought TSM would be unable to secure SwordArt for the following season. Doublelift alleges that any opportunity he had to play with the Worlds finalist was vetoed by TSM owner Andy “Reginald” Dinh.

Why did Doublelift retire from TSM?

In a recent stream, he spoke about his offseason and offered up some pretty serious grievances with TSM. Doublelift said that the decision to stop playing was not his own. Instead, he blames TSM’s conduct during his final offseason for his departure from pro play.

After being told TSM would be unable to secure SwordArt, he retired, Doublelift said. However, once SwordArt arrived in North America, Doublelift said he was asked specifically to play with SwordArt by the world finalist support. According to Doublelift, this effort was stymied by Dinh.

Andy Dinh responds to Doublelift forced retirement claims

As a result, Andy Dinh released a statement on the TSM subreddit, explaining his side of the story. In the statement, Dinh says that it was Doublelift’s ambivalence on retiring that frustrated the entirety of the TSM coaching and support staff.

According to Dinh’s statement, Doublelift said he would be willing to play with a Korean support. Once the contract negotiations around SwordArt hit a snag, Dinh alleges that Yilang went back on his word and refused to play with non-English speaking options.

“Overall, I’m disappointed about this whole situation as I already thought we’ve moved on from working with Peter last year and I didn’t know choosing to not work with him this year would result in this post and his feedback about TSM on stream,” Dinh wrote.

Dinh continued that there is “no reason” for Doublelift to “flame” TSM.

Is Doublelift on TSM?

The TSM founder had strong words for Doublelift, saying his teammates and coaches don’t enjoy working with him. Apparently, Doublelift was considering his options for future play or content creation and TSM was reticent to continue working with him.

At the end of the statement, Dinh said that TSM will be taking steps to part ways with the retired AD carry after this public conflict. The situation escalated quickly yesterday and one of the LCS’ most iconic pairings seems to be having an ugly breakup.