Team Liquid confirms Bwipo as top laner for 2022 LCS season

It’s official. Former Fnatic jungler and top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau has joined Team Liquid.

The rumor was confirmed by Liquid only a few hours after Bwipo was officially released from Fnatic. The previous Fnatic jungler and top laner will be role swapping back to his bread and butter as Team Liquid’s new top laner. This comes after one split as the main jungler for Fnatic, where Bwipo performed above expectations. 

With this signing, Bwipo will be making his LCS debut when the 2022 LCS season starts next year after playing for Fnatic for the past four seasons. It will be Bwipo’s first big roster swap since becoming a top-tier professional player and will serve as an exciting addition to the LCS next year. 

Bwipo will be joining Team Liquid after a shaky season with Fnatic. The talented top laner started the year with a disappointing fifth-place finish in the 2021 LEC Spring Split. The poor result had Fnatic make drastic changes in the mid-season break, with Bwipo moving to the jungle while Fnatic picked up the young talent Adam “Adam” Maanane for the top lane. 

Despite a lot of skepticism from experts and the community, Bwipo ended up performing well as the team’s new jungler. This resulted in a second-place finish in the 2021 LEC Summer Split, where Fnatic fell short to MAD Lions in the grand final. 

The result in summer gave Fnatic a direct ticket to the 2021 World Championship, but everything crumbled at the tournament. Despite high expectations, Fnatic was knocked out of the group stage with a 1-5 record after internal struggles throughout the whole tournament. 

Team Liquid LCS roster in 2022

Team Liquid’s LoL lineup currently includes the following players:

• Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau
• Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in
• Lucas “Santorin” Larsen

It was no surprise that Fnatic and Bwipo decided to part ways this offseason. It was also expected that it would be Team Liquid which would pick up Bwipo, based on several rumors the past weeks. Bwipo will be replacing Barney “Alphari” Morris, who is expected to be heading back to the LEC for next season. 

Now, Bwipo will try to take over where he left off and see if he can take Team Liquid to the top of the LCS in 2022. Bwipo is an experienced player with several trophies to his name. He will be trying to climb the LCS ladder together with the likes of Lucas “Santorin” Larsen and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-In while the rest of the Liquid squad remains unknown for now. Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen remains tied to the organization but has discussed that he may not play next year.

With Bwipo locked in, it’s expected that Liquid will present the rest of its roster in the coming weeks.