Jensen No Longer On TL: A Mid-Laner Other Teams Could Use
For years the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) was defined by a two-headed ogre that was Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen in the mid-lane.
The two of these mid-laners were absolute beasts in their respective teams and were undoubtedly untouched. Although Bjergsen has come out of retirement - his one-year coaching stint - one fact still remains, Jensen is still teamless.
Click to enlargeThe fact that Jensen might go without a team going into the 2022 LCS season is something that would be unheard of a number of years ago. When people thought of Bjergsen, Jensen was closely behind at every single point. It was Bjergsen and Jensen, the kings of the mid-lane.
In many ways, Jensen wasn’t supposed to be in pro-League play having been on the side of harsh competitive rulings from Riot. Regardless of those rulings, the player formerly known as Incarnati0n got through it all, stamping in his new name of Jensen.
He first had the tough task of taking over coveted North American player and known shot caller, Hai “Hai” Du Lam on Cloud9 - that is not an easy task by any means. Not only did he have to replace someone who was quintessential in what really was the first breakout North American success team, but he had his past and the future to go up against.
Like any great player, he took it on in stride; not necessarily taking over the shot-calling role but still making his own impact. He was always there when you needed wins in the regular season, and you could count on him for most of the playoffs - what is there not to like? Although he was often known to be a choker, a player who would fail to show up in the bigger moments, namely LCS split finals, you knew what he was capable of.
Not only that, but he was also part of numerous Cloud9 rosters that endlessly made international waves when no other LCS team would. Cloud9 has always been the paragon in both cultivating new talent and making sure they make it as far as they can at the international stage, no matter if they failed to win an LCS split.
Three years in which Jensen was in a coveted spot that every other North American player would die for. It all culminated in 2018 where Cloud9 continued to impress internationally and reached even greater heights—making the League of Legends World Championship semifinals. This hadn’t been done by a North American team since Season One.
Even though he didn’t win the LCS big one, he got something that not many other players in the league could claim they have.
Jensen eventually got his LCS championship dues. All that was required was for him to swap teams, it so happened that he swapped to a team that was on the come up and were soon to be known as a dynasty. Four LCS titles, back to back, that is unheard in any domestic league. Not only that, even though the team failed to make it out of the group stage at Worlds, they did something the region surprisingly had done once before, make the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) finals.
In many ways, the two-headed ogre of Bjergsen and Jensen has its own strengths. Bjergsen’s head contains an unheard of number of LCS titles only beaten by former teammate and North American legend, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng. While the Jensen head contains a number of LCS titles and a handful of impressive international performances. So the fact that Jensen remains teamless is unfathomable. Sure it might be a money issue, or something of the like, but sometimes you gotta cough up the dough.
