While streaming a watch party of yesterday’s Worlds quarterfinals between JD Gaming and Rogue, League of Legends pros Doublelift and Bjergsen briefly looked back on one of their most infamous moments as teammates together. During the stream, Doublelift brought up the “nine-man sleep,” a play TSM pulled off at Worlds 2020 in which their jungler Spica landed a perfect setup on their opponents, Gen.G, but the entirety of TSM failed to capitalize.
“I had to go back during multiple times this Worlds to watch the nine-man sleep,” Doublelift told Bjergsen on stream. “It got referenced a bunch of times so I had to go back and watch just how bad it actually was, and yeah, it was pretty dogshit man.”
In the play, TSM jungler Spica flashed into the entirety of Gen.G, hitting the whole team with Lillia’s Blooming Blows (Q) and quickly following up with Lilting Lullaby (R). The entire Gen.G lineup was put to sleep by the Lillia ultimate, but no one on TSM followed up, despite having a clear-cut opportunity to do so.
The inaction by all of TSM (except Spica) during the play caused the sequence to earn the infamous “nine-man sleep” nickname, as Spica’s teammates may as well have also been affected by Lillia’s crowd control.
“I was hitting mid minions and I was scared of Ori ulting me but she was literally asleep,” Doublelift said of the play.
The former TSM ADC also mentioned how the team was “pussied out and had the defeatist mindset.”
At that point in the tournament, TSM had already lost four consecutive games in the group stage and were mathematically eliminated from the event. At that moment in the game, TSM were only facing a gold deficit of 2,000 and likely could have turned the game in their favor had they not been gun-shy.
In their discussion, Doublelift blamed himself for the team’s failure to follow up. “If I didn’t let myself have to flash out—if I could just flash in and I had ulti, like if I didn’t do anything stupid—if I just went AFK at the start of the fight, it’s over,” Doublelift said.
Bjergsen coyly agreed with him. “I don’t want to say it’s your fault, but…” the veteran mid laner told his former teammate before trailing off. Doublelift was quick, though, playfully calling out Bjergsen for still having his Flash up while the whole enemy team was asleep and ready to be caught off guard.
In total, TSM lost all six of their group stage games at Worlds that year, becoming the first major region top seed to go winless at the event in its history. TSM’s poor performance at Worlds 2020 has been popping up frequently during this year’s World Championship since all three North American teams finished with records of 1-5.
