Over the past few weeks, Team Liquid’s starting jungler Santorin was forced to step away from pro play due to various health issues that made it impossible to play on-stage.
This past weekend, however, the 24-year-old made his return to Summoner’s Rift to help Liquid win two of their last three games in the 2021 LCS Summer Split regular season. In an interview with Travis Gafford, the veteran said he feels “50 percent better” than he did back when he started his break and he’s raring to play once more.
“I feel like I have a better understanding of how my head is doing, and what I need to do to not make it explode like it did before,” Santorin said. “We fixed my sleep—because sleep was definitely an issue—then we started doing a lot of massages, stretching, and all this kind of stuff because we’re pretty sure there’s a lot of contributing factors to why my head was the way it was.”
Santorin still doesn’t know the exact issues that are plaguing him, though. As a result, he’s still going through some tests. But he’s confident he won’t get to the same level of discomfort as he was in the middle of the 2021 Summer Split.
He also said he wasn’t pressured at all to make a return since Liquid was very supportive of his recovery over the past few weeks. It’s been a gradual return to League of Legends as well, with him slowly increasing his hours of play in solo queue to get the wheels turning once again. He must also catch up and get accustomed to playing in a full team setting again because it’s been a while since he’s played with his teammates against full LCS squads.
In fact, he only started playing in scrims this past week. Liquid fans shouldn’t worry too much, though, because Santorin believes that by next week, he should be close to “peak Santorin” levels with enough practice.
You can watch Liquid and the rest of the LCS in action when the 2021 Summer Split playoffs begin on Saturday, Aug. 7.
Make sure to follow us on YouTube for more esports news and analysis.
