Ever since TES made history by losing to G2 during MSI, netizens across the web have been mocking TES as the "International Friendlies Team." After all, TES' performance in international competitions has been poor in recent years. Of course, there are also many viewers who fear that TES might collapse mentally after this defeat, as TES coach Poppy once revealed that the team is highly reliant on player morale. If any TES player is in a bad mood, the team's overall strength drops significantly—many speculate this player is TES mid-laner Young Cream.

For years, industry insiders have pointed out issues with Young Cream's mentality. Recently, his close friend and top-laner Shanji revealed a major incident during a livestream: after TES suffered a historic reverse sweep by G2 (winning two games before losing three), the team's atmosphere in the break room turned sour. Young Cream reportedly made many defeatist remarks and vented aggressively. Many viewers hoped Shanji would share more details, but he explained that Young Cream was just blowing off steam—he couldn't betray his friend, and after that BO5 series, Young Cream had every right to say those things.

After hearing Shanji's revelations, many viewers began speculating about TES' upcoming match against Vietnam's TSW. Since TES now relies heavily on mid-laner Young Cream and jungler Tian, if Young Cream's mental state affects his performance, TES might stumble against TSW. Although TES has lost to a Vietnamese team before—but that was a BO1 match. In MSI's BO5 format, many fans are curious whether TES can make new history by becoming the first LPL team to lose a BO5 to a Vietnamese region team.

Of course, many also believe TES lost to G2 because they "outsmarted themselves." In the decisive BO5 game, TES didn't swap champions early but waited until the final moments of the pick-and-ban phase to swap their jungle and support picks. This violation was caught and reported by G2. According to Zhu Kai's live analysis, if TES had chosen Pantheon for the jungle role from the start, they might have had a chance to win. Pantheon and Yone both deal AD damage, which could have compensated for TES' lack of physical damage output.

But by assigning Pantheon to support, TES' only AD damage source became Yone—all other picks (Maokai, Ziggs, Ornn) dealt AP damage. This left TES' lineup critically short on AD damage. Zhu Kai also admitted that the LPL officials have pampered TES too much. In LPL matches, swapping champions in the final 20 seconds of the draft is allowed with a post-match fine. But at MSI, TES tried the same trick, expecting to gain an advantage—only to be reported by G2.

TES' loss to G2 is indeed regrettable, but looking back, few expected TES to beat G2 anyway. G2 had swept BFX and GEN consecutively during the First Stand tournament. TES, on the other hand, has serious issues with both player form and champion pools—especially the latter. Many believe TES can't win MSI, and LPL's only hope is BLG. Do you think BLG can achieve the miracle of completing the Golden Road?

Conclusion

According to MSI rules, dropping into the lower bracket might actually make it easier for TES to reach the semifinals—they'll only need to face Vietnamese and North American teams. Still, I believe if TES can't defeat G2 or at least one LCK team during MSI, their journey in this tournament will be a failure. Do you think TES can redeem themselves in the coming matches?