There and Back as Zven: A Career Retrospective

Danish AD carry Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen, as a still fairly young 22 year old, is a veteran of the League of Legend’s esport scene and has had a tumultuous career of ups and downs. Zven started his rookie season quite impressively in the 2015 EU LCS summer split managing to stamp his mark on the scene by showcasing his talents as the next big thing when it came to European AD carries. Competing on Origen at the time, going by the name of Niels, with a talent-stacked roster of veteran players in Paul "Soaz" Boyer, Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider, Enrique "xPeke" Martínez and Alfonso "Mithy" Aguirre Rodríguez helping facilitate his growth Zven was able to set himself apart as one of the best players and main carries on the team. I'm sure that the 22 year old Zven would look back on the player that he was in 2015 and notice a plethora of mistakes waiting to be corrected but at the time it was clear that he was a diamond waiting to be polished. Mechanically superior to almost every AD carry in the region and paired with veteran support player Mithy only the bot lane of Rekkles and Yellowstar of Fnatic were able to challenge the two in Europe. The prospect of having Mithy as your first support was a god-send for such a new and mechanically skilled AD carry trying to learn the role in the context of professional play. Zven himself states that most of what he knows about the game came from his long-time teammate in Mithy, functioning a similar role that Chauster did in bringing up baby Doublelift or Aphromoo with Stixxay, Cody Sun and now Johnsun, we've often seen how beneficial it is for these new up-and-coming AD carries to be paired with a veteran support player to show them the ropes; like an experienced gentleman ballroom dancer taking the lead when dancing with a young and naive 17 year old flower waiting to bloom Mithy led Zven in dancing their way to the play-off finals of their first split together, losing 2-3 against the legendary Fnatic roster that succeeded in finishing 18-0 in that split’s regular season, having what many consider one of, if not the best, EU final of all time. Zven and Origen would round out their year by advancing out of the group of death in their worlds bracket, a group containing TSM, Origen, KT Rolster and LGD (who we're considered favourites for the whole tournament). Even when competing against such renowned AD carries as Arrow and Imp Zven didn't look out of place on the grand stage, having several memorable hard carry Kalista games and being a reliable asset to the team despite his low level of experience. Zven and Origen would continuing to impress by beating Flash Wolves 3-1 in the quarter-finals before advancing to a top 4 placement at the 2015 World Championship after losing 3-0 to the eventual tournament winners SKT T1. Not a bad start for a rookie AD carry's first split.

Origen would go into the 2016 spring split with their roster unchanged, aside from acquiring a mid-lane substitute player for Xpeke in Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage (who did play the majority of the regular season and play-offs mind you). This split was certainly more shaky when it came to regular season play, finishing 4th place overall when compared to their 2nd place finish the previous split, but when it came time for play-offs Origen and Zven proved themselves to still be the better players during crunch-time when compared to the majority of their opposition in EU. Origen would face G2 in the finals of that split, it being G2's first split Zven found himself facing off against somebody in the same position that he was in the split prior in Luka "Perkz" Perković, it being Perkz's rookie split he, like Zven, had made a finals on his first try but unlike Zven would go on to lift the trophy by beating Origen 3-1, handing Origen and Zven their second straight second place finish. While I'm sure at the time it was disappointing for Zven to once again finish second, always the brides maid and never the bride and so on, I think more has to be said that finishing in second place that split was quite an accomplishment. Origen had managed to outperform expectations that many analysts had going in to that spring's play-offs by beating what many considered a better team with overall more talent in H2K in the semi-finals (this is the same H2K roster featuring Odoamne, Jankos, Ryu, Forgiven and Vander that would go on to finish top 4 at the 2016 World Championship by defeating Albus Nox Luna in the quarters). Zven was a major carry in the games against H2K and his Lucian play netted him player of the series. Once again the young Zven was showing himself as a player who stepped up when the pressure was on and was capable of performing at an extremely high level when it mattered the most. Zven and Mithy, unhappy with the direction that Origen was heading in, decided to jump ship and leave Origen to try again as a bot lane on a new team (this wound up being an excellent decision as the ship they were jumping from was revealed in the next split to be on fire and sinking into shark infested waters; Origen finished in 9th place during the next split's regular season, although I’m sure having to find a new bot lane on such short notice didn’t help). The team that Zven and Mithy joined was of course the same team that had served them up a second place finish the split prior in G2. G2 were coming off their own embarrassing performance at that years Mid-Season Invitational and were looking to upgrade their bot lane (even before G2 attended MSI this had been the plan) and so they made the quite prudent decision of picking up the best part of their rival team from the last EU LCS finals in Zven and Mithy, bolstering their roster and hampering their competition in one swift move.

We now enter into the high mark of Zven's career so far. On G2 with another young and hungry European prodigy in Perkz, two highly skilled Korean imports at the time in Ki "Expect" Dae-han and Kim "Trick" Gang-yun and his now year-long bot lane partner in Mithy Zven was finally able to taste the sweet taste of victory that had eluded him for the past year. Dominating the regular season and finishing first place with a record of 10-8-0, without ever going 0-2 in a series (EU LCS was doing a best-of-2 format at the time), it was never in question who the best team in Europe was, it was clearly G2 and they would deliver on this regular season domination by going on to finish first place in the play-offs defeating Unicorns of Love and Splyce 3-1 in the semi-finals and finals respectively. Finally, after a year of second place finishes, Zven was able to hoist the European LCS championship trophy. Zven and Mithy had been coined by analysts as "The Best Bot lane In the West" and all that was left to do in the year was to move forward and have a good showing at worlds, how hard could that be? G2 proceeded to have a disastrous showing at that years 2016 World Championship, finishing last place in a group that almost every single expert giving predictions at the time predicted G2 at least finishing in second and qualifying for the bracket stage. The group consisted of ROX Tigers, G2 Esports, Counter Logic Gaming and Albus Nox Luna. In a bizarre reversal of Zven's first experience at a world championship group stage, where Zven and Origen out-did all expectations by advancing out of a group of death, G2 managed to fall short of every expectation and failed to advance out of the "group of life". Losing 0-2 to CLG, 0-2 to ROX Tigers, and only managing to procure a single victory from Albus Nox Luna G2 bombed out of the group stage that year with a 1-5 record. Nobody on the G2 roster looked good at that years worlds tournament and G2’s play looked like an empty husk of what they had shown in Europe. I'm sure this all felt unreal to the staff and players of the team as it was happening. Zven, coming off of the most successful split of his career, now had to deal with what was likely one of the lowest points in his life, disappointing his region, his team mates and himself.

You would be forgiven for being worried about G2 going in to the 2017 spring split, roster unchanged, after such a catastrophic failure but people's worries were quickly put to rest. G2 went on to replicate and even exceed their 2016 summer split dominance during the regular season finishing 12-1 in best-of-3 series and 25-8 in overall game score, topping their group at first place. G2 carried this momentum into the spring play-offs, defeating Fnatic and Unicorns of Love 3-1 in the semi-finals and finals respectively, earning Zven his second EU title in a row and G2 a shot at international redemption at the 2017 MSI tournament. G2 were heading into this event with skeptical eyes watching them, G2 had become the butt of many jokes when it came to their international performances, after all this was the team that had memed themselves into another realm by finishing as G2-8 at the last MSI (with a different roster) and had also finished last place with a 1-5 record at their most recent international showing in the 2016 world's group stage. G2 certainly had a lot to prove during this event and it was touch and go during the group stage. G2 finished the group 4-6, coming back from a massive gold deficit in their final game against Team Solo Mid to win and guarantee themselves a place in the bracket stage; G2 had tied with Team Solo Mid and Flash Wolves but due to tie-breaker rules G2's 2-0 victory over Flash Wolves was enough to make it so they didn't have to play a tie-breaker and they advanced to the bracket stage in third place. G2's opponents in the semi-finals would be the Chinese powerhouse that had 2-0'd them in the round robin in Team WE. WE had a very impressive group stage, finishing 7-3 and taking a game off SKT (back when that mattered a lot more than in recent years) and were the favourites going into their match against G2. Always defying expectations G2 won the series fairly dominantly in a 3-1 fashion. Zven for his part during the series, and in G2 generally, performed his duties as secondary carry admirably but the main carry of the team in this series and throughout Zven's time in G2 was of course the Croatian WonderChad Perkz who, incidentally, had a bit of an international coming out party during this series against WE. I say this not to dismiss Zven's skill at the time but to put into perspective his role in the team, mid lane players generally have an easier time being the focal carry in a team due to the variety of champions available for them to play when compared to AD carries and also due to the fact that they are generally among the highest level in the game from absorbing solo lane experience; there's nothing wrong with playing second fiddle to a player who would go on to show himself as the best western player of all time in subsequent years and Perkz has had nothing but good things to say about his time playing with Zven. G2 would make it to the finals of the 2017 MSI tournament where they had the privilege of undergoing the same treatment that any non-Korean team faced when making the finals of an international event during the years of absolute Korean supremacy between 2013-2017 (2015 EDG vs SKT MSI finals being the exception). G2 faced Korean Michael Jordan in Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok and his team SK Telecom T1 and were defeated 3-1 in the finals. As stated previously even taking a single game off SKT at the time was impressive and so G2 ultimately had a very successful international performance and placing for the first time in the organization’s history. Zven and G2 were living up to their expectations.

Morale was high, coming off their second place finish at MSI, for Zven and G2 going into the 2017 summer split regular season. This regular season was a bit of an anomaly for G2 as far as regular seasons go, finishing second place behind Fnatic in their group with a series record of 8-5 in Best-of-3s and a 20-13 record in individual games. Going into the summer play-offs people were wondering if G2's time had finally come, they had won the last 3 splits in Europe and maybe the rest of the competition was catching up. Unfortunately for anyone wishing this to be true G2 wound up winning the summer play-offs, encountering only one minor road bump in a close 3-2 series against Splyce in the quarter-finals. G2 went on to dominate both H2K and Misfits 3-0 in the semi-finals and finals respectively, securing Zven his third European championship title in a row. "But wait" I hear you ask, "Didn't Fnatic finish above G2 in the regular season, where were they in the play-offs?" Fnatic fell to the same fate that many regular season heroes fall to in not being able to translate their regular season success to a high-stakes play-off scenario, losing 3-1 against Misfits, getting rolled over in the early game and taking with them any chance that G2 might be challenged in the finals; this same Fnatic would then fall even further from grace when they failed to make it past H2K in the gauntlet to decide the last team to represent Europe at worlds. G2, having redeemed their international reputation at the 2017 MSI tournament, were ready to redeem their 2016 worlds performance going in to the 2017 World Championship. Tragically for G2 they received the 2016 TSM group stage treatment. G2 were placed in a group with some of the best teams in the world and were required to face Chinese superstar Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao and his team RNG as well as Malzahar God Lee "Crown" Min-ho and his team, the eventual 2017 World Championship victors, in Samsung Galaxy if they wanted a chance at entering the bracket stage. G2 and Zven, despite a much better showing than their 2016 performance, failed to advance out of the group stage, finishing with a record of 3-3 and securing a notable victory over RNG in a sub 30 minute stomp in week 2. For the second year in a row Zven had failed to advance out of the group stage of worlds alongside his team mates in G2.

Heading in to the 2018 season it was looking unlikely that the same G2 roster of the last year and a half would be sticking together. The team had experienced domestic success, winning Europe three splits in a row, and were able to showcase their skill internationally during the 2017 MSI event and during select games in the 2017 World Championship but things move fast in life and esports and so all good things come to an end. Zven and Mithy were approached by the long standing North American organization Team Solo Mid during the off-season. TSM, despite their immense domestic success winning the last three splits in North America, had undergone their own disappointing worlds group stage experience, failing to advance out of the group stage in both 2016 and 2017 with what many consider one of the best North American line-ups of all time; TSM had identified what they thought to be the problem in the idea that they didn't have a designated player who was comfortable with shot calling and they assumed, quite reasonably, that a veteran player of Mithy's calibre would shore up these weaknesses. Sticking to the age old adage of not fixing something that isn't broken TSM extended an offer to both halves of the best bot lane in Europe, replacing Doublelift and Biofrost with Zven and Mithy in an attempt to have more success internationally. At the beginning of the 2018 NA LCS regular season most analysts had predicted that this roster move would be an overall upgrade to the team, with maybe some growing pains to work through at the start. It's important to note that there was another new edition to the team in high-tempo jungler Michael "MikeYeung" Yeung and without giving too much away I'll just say that in years prior and henceforth from this period TSM have reportedly been under a mysterious "jungle curse", perhaps the hex was cast by a voodoo doctor who acquired a strand of Bjergsen's hair while the mid laner was on holiday in Jamaica. The 2018 TSM roster was finalized as Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell, MikeYeung, Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, Zven and Mithy. The regular season went well, all things considered, finishing 11-7 in a best-of-1 double round robin and securing 3rd place after playing out tie-breakers (TSM were tied with 3 other teams at the end of the regular season and so had to win 2 different tie-breaker games against Clutch Gaming and Team Liquid). It was looking bright for this TSM squad, team play was rough towards the beginning of the split and TSM were at a 4-6 record at the end of week 5 but things picked up towards the later half and when you looked at every team's form going in to the 2018 spring play-offs it wasn't a stretch to claim TSM as the best looking team in North America. TSM were peaking at just the right time, after their poor start for the first 5 weeks of the regular season TSM won 7 out of 8 of their remaining games and were on a 6 game win streak (when accounting for tie-breakers) going into play-offs. TSM's opponents were the much-maligned Clutch Gaming, despite finishing the season 11-7 Clutch had lost 2 tie-breaker games which resulted in a final placing of 6th at the end of the regular season; most experts would agree before the play-offs that Clutch were looking like the weakest play-off team. Even when taking into account Clutch's winning 2-1 record over TSM throughout the regular season they were heavy underdogs going into their best-of-5 quarter-final, the reason cited at the time as being Clutch generally having weaker players in almost every position when compared to other play-off teams. Much was made of the fact that Zven had never missed a final in his two and a half year career over 5 splits in Europe alongside the fact that TSM, as an organization, had never missed a final in all their years of playing in the NA LCS since its inception in 2013; these two factors combined made it so that every fortune teller and palm reader in the League of Legend's esport scene were divining from the stars TSM's inevitable final appearance. The bad news for anybody invested in this theory is that astrology is pseudoscience and when a team isn't playing well together there will be no divine intervention ensuring that something that has "always been" will stay that way. TSM lost their quarter finals match up against Clutch Gaming 3-1, marking the worst finish for either TSM or Zven and Mithy in a domestic split, the reasons for this loss are numerous. The series started off as people had expected, TSM cruising to a 30 minute victory and outplaying Clutch individually and if you had offered me 1000-1 odds on Clutch gaming winning the series after the first game I wouldn't have taken you up on it. The three games that followed this initial victory are etched forever in the mind's of TSM fans and haters alike. MikeYeung, it being his first play-off experience ever, appeared to crumble under the pressure put on him when he was forced to play on the back foot to Clutch Gaming's jungler Lira, couple this with TSM's questionable champion priority in letting Clutch Gaming's mid laner Febiven get his hands on the over tuned champion Swain at the time and Clutch Gaming support player Hakuho's magnificent performance on Thresh throughout the series, landing countless hooks on to the bot lane of Zven and Mithy, make it so that in retrospect TSM's loss makes sense. Making sense of the situation doesn't help cushion the blow however when coming to terms with the worst domestic placing in the organization’s history. Zven, Mithy and TSM had gone from winning 3 domestic splits in a row to getting knocked out in the quarter-finals in NA; it was time to regroup and try again next split.

First thing on TSM's agenda going into the summer split was to remove low-tempo jungler MikeYeung from the starting roster and to replace him with rookie jungler Jonathan "Grig" Armao. The regular season went slightly worse than the previous split as TSM finished with a record of 10-8. TSM were tied with three other teams and had to play two tie-breaker games against teams Echo Fox and Flyquest which they lost and won respectively, finishing in 5th place. TSM were hungry to redeem their spring split performance and heading into the play-offs with yet another completely inexperienced play-off jungler, their first test was against the team that had defeated them in the end of the split tie-breaker team Echo Fox. Both of these teams looked relatively close towards the end of the split and when you took into account the amount of veteran talent on TSM you'd be reasonable in picking either one of them to win out and move on to semi-finals. The series was as close as you'd expect but TSM's favourite child Bjergsen had a carry performance to remind us all why his trophy cabinet bursts with NA titles and MVP awards. TSM won the series 3-2 after being down 2-1 going into game 4 and sweeping the next 2 games riding in Bjergsen's backpack, they would move on to face Cloud 9 in the semi-finals. The Cloud 9 vs. TSM rivalry goes back to the start of the LCS and heading into the 2018 summer play-off semi-final it had been 4 years since Cloud 9 had bested TSM in a play-off scenario. The series began well for TSM being up 2-1 going into game 4 and coming off a massive carry performance from Zven on Swain in game 3. Cloud 9, with one of the funniest substitutions ever, subbed out star mid laner Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen and their own under performing rookie jungler Robert "Blaber" Huang for ex-TSM jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen and a mid laner who's trophy cabinet bursts with participation awards in Greyson Gregory "Goldenglue" Gilmer. Goldenglue, invoking the ghostly spirit of Crown, was piloting Malzahar and Svenskeren was able to take advantage of the rookie Grig by power farming on Graves and carrying the 4th game to a Cloud 9 victory. This trend continued in game 5 with the two substitute Cloud 9 players playing the exact same champions and TSM, despite having a better early game than game 4, were soundly defeated. TSM and Zven had again failed to make the play-off finals, they would move on to achieve a Pyrrhic victory against team 100 Thieves 3-2 in the 3rd place decider match. TSM's next objective after play-offs was the gauntlet to decide the last team to represent North America at the 2018 World Championship. TSM had been at every single World Championship dating back to season 1 and if they didn’t want to lose both of their prestigious records of always making NA finals and worlds in a single year then they would have to win the regional qualifier. TSM had to contend with some bad luck as in order to win the gauntlet and go to worlds they would have to beat the team that had just bested them in the play-offs in Cloud 9. Even though Cloud 9 were likely the 2nd best team in North America at this time it was due to their spring split final placing of 5th/6th that left them without enough championship points to secure the second seed to go to worlds, which instead went to 100 Thieves who had beat Clutch Gaming 3-2 in spring and Flyquest 3-0 in summer to achieve their 2nd place seed; it was thanks to this that TSM were in the rough position of needing to beat the team they had just lost to in Cloud 9 instead of the team they had beaten in 100 Thieves in order to make worlds. TSM would make quick work of their first match against team Echo Fox in the gauntlet with a fast and easy 3-0, now it was time for the true test against Cloud 9. TSM failed the test 3-0, keeping it close in the early game in all 3 games but were unable to contend with Cloud 9's unorthodox picks (Hecarim top) or their superior mid-late game team fighting, Cloud 9 won this time without any substitutions needed. This is the same Cloud 9 team that would go on to place 3rd/4th in the 2018 World Championship (running Svenskeren instead of Blaber) by defeating Afreeca Freecs 3-0 in the quarter-finals and were a tall order for TSM who weren't up to the task. For the first time in their active history Zven, Mithy and the TSM organization would miss a World Championship.

I won't say that Mithy played up to his form that he had in Europe, when he was one of the best support players in the league for his entire time playing, while in NA. Mithy had certainly lost a step since moving regions and Zven certainly had the worst play-off performance of his career in the quarter finals match up against Clutch Gaming in spring and didn't seem to be able to flourish as he had in Europe on TSM. The roster for TSM going into the 2019 year was in for some changes. Zven, for the first time in a professional setting, would be playing without his three and a half year support Mithy; together they had won 3 European championships, made an MSI final and attended worlds 3 separate times, making a semi-final on their first attempt in 2015, they were the best bot lane in Europe and the West in their prime and now they would go their separate ways. TSM would replace their top laner Hauntzer with Turkish import Sergen "BrokenBlade" Çelik and replace their support Mithy with ex-Echo Fox support Andy "Smoothie" Ta, establishing the finalized roster of Brokenblade, Grig, Bjergsen, Zven and Smoothie. TSM would encounter an early snag in their plan as the jungler they had chosen to start Grig was undergoing wrist issues and couldn't scrim or play the game as much as he was required to be apart of the starting roster and so TSM would field their academy jungler Matthew "Akaadian" Higginbotham for the entire spring split regular season and play-offs. The regular season transpired with relatively little trouble, finishing with a record of 13-5 and ending in 3rd place, barely missing out on a top two finish by one game. TSM's first match in the play-off quarter-finals was against team Echo Fox. TSM would win the series comfortably 3-1 with a little help from suspected TSM infiltration agent Lee "Rush" Yoon-jae who had an absolutely god awful series playing jungle for Echo Fox. TSM's semi-final opponent would be the team that had knocked them out of play-off and worlds contention in the last split team Cloud 9. TSM were underdogs going in to this best-of-5 and their underdog status looked warranted in the first 2 games of the series with Cloud 9 stomping TSM in back-to-back sub 30 minute victories. TSM were down 0-2 going into game 3 and Akaadian looked like he was going to be a repeat of TSM's jungle woes for the past year with some shaky play in the first 2 losses; TSM needed a reverse sweep if they didn't want to miss out on play-off finals for the third split in a row. Game 3 was won off a dual-carry performance from Zven's Ezreal and Bjergsen's Akali, Akaadian continued to struggle in this game. Game 4 was a continuation of this momentum, Zven still on his ever-reliable Ezreal and with Akaadian breaking the trend of TSM junglers under performing in play-offs with a pop-off game on his best champion Rek'sai TSM destroyed Cloud 9 in a 25 minute victory. Game 5 would be the deciding game and for the first 30 minutes it was looking good for Cloud 9, edging out some early skirmishes and dragon contests, but TSM fought their way back with some excellent team-fighting in the late game and were able to secure the win in a back and forth 40 minute brawl. TSM won out against Cloud 9 3-2 and would be making their first finals appearance in a year against the back-to-back domestic champions Team Liquid. Zven had a chance at becoming the first player to win domestic titles in both Europe and North America by defeating the best North American AD carry of all time in Doublelift and TSM had a chance to redeem their last year of disappointing results. Liquid, following their recent successes since 2018, were looking to tie TSM as the only teams in North America to win 3 splits in a row and were considered favourites going in to the finals.

The finals began unexpectedly with a game 1 TSM victory off the back of a massive carry performance from Brokenblade's Vladimir. Game 2 Zven and Smoothie ran the infamous Sona/Taric double support bottom lane with bruisers in the top and jungle in Irelia and Hecarim that Liquid were unable to punish early-game which resulted in TSM out-scaling Liquid and making it almost impossible to lose team-fights after 25 minutes. TSM were up 2-0 going in to game 3 and only needed to win one more game to net them the spring split trophy and a ticket to the 2019 MSI event. Game 3 was closely contested at the start but TSM found themselves with a slight lead at 20 minutes thanks to some impressive early game play from Akaadian on Rek'sai; TSM fought a couple poorly coordinated dragon fights and had an ill conceived Baron call at 34 minutes that resulted in Team Liquid securing the Baron, then the Elder Drake and then the win. Game 4 began terribly for TSM with Akaadian and Bjergsen losing an early skirmish and giving up 2 kills in the mid lane before 5 minutes, TSM then continued to fall apart in the early game with Liquid decimating the TSM bot lane with multiple counter ganks and teleport plays as well as some excellent 2v2 laning from Doublelift and Corejj; Liquid would sprint with their massive early lead to a 25 minute victory. TSM, just a week after reverse sweeping Cloud 9, were now in danger of being reverse swept themselves in the finals of all places. It was time for the deciding winner-take-all game 5, TSM found themselves in a slight early gold lead towards the start of the game which ballooned even further in a 30 minute infernal drake fight that resulted in an ace of Team Liquid. TSM had two infernal drakes, a moderate gold and kill lead and looked to be in control of the game. TSM lost vision control on the Baron which caused Zven to scout the Baron by himself, there he saw Xmithie's Skarner and so he decided to go for some poke, even choosing to walk into auto attack range; even while playing one of the safest marksman in the game Ezreal, the same champion that had been such a success in TSM's reverse sweep of Cloud 9, the mobility provided by the champion wasn't enough to save him when Xmithie chased down and stunned Zven's Ezreal, allowing three other Team Liquid players to catch up and finish the job. Zven's death resulted in a forced TSM 4v5 team fight in order to try to stop or steal Team Liquid's Baron attempt. Liquid won the fight and secured Baron, giving them their first major advantage of the game, afterwords a team fight played out around Elder Drake; TSM were in a rough but manageable position where they had lost their top and support members but had killed the jungler of Team Liquid, at this point TSM likely could have disengaged and reset to try and fight another Elder Drake fight in a more favourable 5v5 position but Zven again found himself out of position when he arcane shifts forward on Ezreal towards the bottom lane brush to try and finish off some low health Team Liquid members which allowed Jensen's Leblanc to land her full combo, killing Zven, and giving Team Liquid a chance to quickly reset and then capture the Elder drake uncontested in a numbers advantage. Team Liquid were able to force a team fight at the Baron while they still had the Elder Drake buff in which they won and then took another Baron and then the game shorty thereafter. TSM had lost to Team Liquid 3-2 and two crucial mistakes towards the end of the deciding game 5 were committed by Zven. The loss was of course not solely on Zven's mistakes in game 5, plenty of other TSM members had committed mistakes all throughout Team Liquid's reverse sweep but Zven's happened in the most defining moment and so that what people would remember. Zven's predicament was further exacerbated by the fact that he had some cheeky hovers in champion select, constantly hovering Ekko throughout the series, a champion in which Liquid mid laner Jensen had had his own game defining failure in a game 5 final against TSM while on Cloud 9. Zven was mocked by some gold 2 redditors or some iron 4 Twitter users but anyone being rational understands that even the best players make bad mistakes sometimes and it's easy to expect perfect play when you aren't the one participating in a hyper stressful environment, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans for upwards of 6 or 7 hours.

TSM, while not champions, still had a lot to be happy with when reviewing their spring split performance. They had finished the regular season strong and then had a powerful run through the play-offs, upsetting Cloud 9 and losing a razor thin series against Team Liquid. TSM, despite their successes in spring, decided to experiment with their roster bringing back their former jungler Grig, now that his wrist issues had resolved, to split time with Akaadian in the summer split. During the summer regular season this played out towards the start with Grig having participated in more of TSM's wins but towards the end of the season Akaadian was announced as the starting jungler from then onward. In a strange turn of events, a week before play-offs, Akaadian was permanently benched from TSM in favour of a complete unknown rookie jungler Mingyi “Spica” Lu. From the outside this looked to be a crazy decision that would hamper TSM's run in the play-offs significantly. TSM had been plagued with jungle issues for entirety of 2018 and after they had their best play-off run in a year with Akaadian they decided to forgo the synergy and trust built up in Akaadian during the spring split to experiment with their roster and even preferred fielding a completely inexperienced rookie player in a play-offs over Akaadian. Zven himself had mentioned in an Interview with Montecristo and Thoorin on Summoning Insight that he had wanted to have Akaadian as the starting jungler from the start of summer but was overruled by Bjergsen and other members in the TSM organization. TSM ended the regular season in 4th place with a game record of 10-8, their quarter-final opponent would be Clutch Gaming. Spica was of course unimpressive throughout the series but it's to be expected given the position he was put in and I sympathize with how difficult it must have been for him. TSM, far from their spring split form, were unable to deal with the fast pace put on them by Clutch Gaming, losing game 1 in 30 minutes, game 2 in 28 minutes and game 4 in 35 minutes, ultimately losing the series 3-1. TSM and Zven were back to exiting in the quarter-finals but there was no time to dwell on it as the gauntlet to decide the last team to represent North America at worlds was coming up fast. TSM, thanks to their spring final placing, had enough championship points to be seeded directly in the final of the gauntlet where they would again face Clutch Gaming. Towards the start of the series it looked like in the time in between play-offs and the gauntlet TSM had become more comfortable playing with Spica and had maybe solved the puzzle that was Clutch Gaming. TSM snagged two wins in a row, winning a closely contested game 1 and took an early lead in game 2, had a bit of a Baron throw towards the mid game, but won it anyways with a 5 for 2 team-fight ace in the late game; this earned them a 2-0 lead going into game 3 and now they were only a single win away from making a return to worlds after a year long hiatus. Game 3 was a return to the dynamic shown in TSM and Clutch's match in the play-offs with Clutch taking an early lead into an easy victory. Game 4 was close until the mid-game but Spica had a particular poor performance throughout and Clutch were able to take Baron and the win thanks to some mistakes from the rookie jungler and some excellent team-fighting in the late game. Game 5 was again close but a fumbled Baron attempt performed by TSM, in which Clutch AD carry Cody Sun's Kog'maw was allowed to freely output DPS, gave Clutch the Baron and the edge that they needed to close out the game, completing their reverse sweep against TSM. Zven and TSM would miss worlds for the second year in a row.

While I wouldn't say that Zven played at his peak while on TSM I wouldn't pin their 2 years of disappointing results on him. When Zven and Mithy had first joined TSM in the spring of 2018 I would agree they played quite poorly in their quarter-finals match against Clutch and Zven has said as much himself. In summer of 2018 I would still argue that TSM were the 3rd best team in North America at the end of the split but due to TSM and Cloud 9's failings in spring TSM were required to be the 2nd best team in North America at the time if they wanted to go to worlds. TSM had an impressive performance in spring of 2019, barely missing out on a championship in an all-time great NA final and in the summer of the same year I feel as though the staff of the TSM organization is more to blame for the horrendous way in which they handled the jungle situation. Again, I'm not saying that Zven played up to the standards he set while he was dominating Europe but I will say that in many instances during his time on TSM there were factors that were out of his control contributing to their failings, aside from simply playing better in the play-offs of spring 2018 to maybe make worlds in the summer with a higher amount of championship points. After 2 years of failing to achieve results on TSM Zven was removed from the roster.

We've now caught up to the modern era where Zven would receive an offer to join the North American perennial 2nd place finishers team Cloud 9 for the 2020 season which Zven readily took. Zven would be replacing Cloud 9's six and a half year AD carry and professional cosplayer Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi. Cloud 9, like TSM, have been a staple of the LCS since their entry into the league in the summer of 2013 but after two utterly dominant seasons in the summer of 2013 and spring of 2014 they have failed to win a single split since, losing in the final 6 separate times. Zven and the Cloud 9 organization are two of a kind when it comes to wanting win a trophy after tasting victory early in their history and falling short ever since. The 2020 Cloud 9 roster would consist of top laner Eric "Licorice" Ritchie, jungler Blaber, mid laner Yasin "Nisqy" Dinçer, bot laner Zven and support Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme. As of right now we are heading into week 8 of the LCS and Cloud 9 have already clinched the first seed of the regular season sitting at a 13-1 record. I've said before that watching Cloud 9 play against other North American teams right now feels like watching Usain Bolt compete in the 100 metre dash against a quadriplegic turtle, their one loss against TSM in week 7 aside. Cloud 9 as a team are looking the best that they have in years and Zven is having a return to form playing with Vulcan who looks to be the best performing support that Zven has had since playing with Mithy in Europe. Nisqy has had a remarkable change in play style this split and has been a constant roaming presence on the map, often converting these roams, in tandem with hyper aggressive jungler Blaber, into kills onto the opposing bot lane who are constantly shoved into their turret by Zven and Vulcan. Cloud 9 have 2 weeks of free play to practice whatever they like in a stage environment without risking their 1st seed in the play-offs while other teams are still fighting tooth and nail for seeding. Cloud 9's form has stayed consistent all throughout the regular season and at this point it would be a massive disappointment to not win the spring split. Zven himself has stated that this feels like the best team that he's been apart of since his days ruling Europe on G2, and indeed there have been some attempts to classify Cloud 9 as the North American equivalent of G2, having a similar fast paced and suffocating play style. Forecasting for the future of play-offs the only real threats to stop Cloud 9 storming their way through play-offs and winning the spring split trophy would be if TSM, the only team so far to take a game off Cloud 9, can stay consistently good which is easier said than done when looking at TSM's constant back and forth pattern of having 0-2 and then 2-0 weeks during the regular season; the other threat is if the sleeping giant that is the Team Liquid roster finally wakes up and starts playing how people expected them to play when they first announced their all star line-up for the spring season. Even assuming both of these teams shape up in time for play-offs Cloud 9 are looking so incredibly good that I would still consider them the favourites going into any match up. The pieces are all set for Zven and Cloud 9 make their triumphant return to the top of the league and win their first domestic title in 2 and 6 years respectively and for Zven to become the first player to win domestic titles in both Europe and North America. All we can do now is to wait and see if they deliver.