With less than 24 hours until the beginning of Week 3 of the North American League Championship Series, Team Liquid's substitute AD carry Jovani "fabbbyyy" Guillen will make his LCS debut this weekend in place of star AD carry Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin.
Fabbbyyy will not completely replace Piglet for the week; the two carries will switch in and out during the team's sets versus Phoenix1 and NRG Esports on Friday and Saturday.
Gonna start @FabbbyyyLoL this week. His been itching for LCS time. @LiquidPiglett isnt BENCHED, coming to LCS with us for support and sub!
— loco (@Locodoco) June 17, 2016
On Thursday, fabbbyyy scrimmaged with the main squad instead of his normal team, Team Liquid Academy, where he has competed for the past six months. Additionally, fabbbyyy was seen on starting jungler Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnett's stream earlier this morning in the main squad's apartment home, which is separate from the Team Liquid Academy apartment.
Using fabbbyyy in place of Piglet isn't all that surprising, as sources close to the team and its players tell ESPN that Dardoch has had internal disputes with Piglet, which originally caused a suspension to be levied against Dardoch earlier in the season. That suspension has since been lifted, with Dardoch returning to the team in hopes of it returning to top form.
So far this split, Team Liquid has had a poor showing in comparison to the spring. It's currently in seventh place in the LCS, taking three losses out of its past four games to the likes of Counter Logic Gaming, Team EnVyUs and Team SoloMid. Its only win is over Echo Fox, which also is looking significantly worse than last split.
Before the summer, Team Liquid took home fourth place in the North American LCS Spring Playoffs after a loss to Counter Logic Gaming in the semifinals and then a loss to Immortals in the third-place match. Many experts and analysts predicted that with the new best-of-three format change to the league, Team Liquid would be one of the more improved teams; however, current results don't live up to that expectation.
If there was ever a good time to debut a new player for Team Liquid, now might be the best week possible as it faces off against NRG and Phoenix1. The former, despite surprisingly taking a game over Immortals, is currently finding its footing with a completely new lineup this split, while the latter looks like arguably the worst team in the North American LCS.
Team Liquid didn't respond to a request for comment.