League of Legends: TSM Announces Akaadian as LCS Starting Jungler

In a Tweet this afternoon, Team SoloMid (“TSM”) announced that Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham will be their starting jungler in the LCS. As a result, Jonathan “Grig” Armao will be the Academy team's jungler. Though Grig will continue to practice with the LCS roster, it is likely fans won't see him on the LCS stage anymore this split.

After a long process, we have decided to move forward with @akaadian as our primary Jungler for our LCS team. @TSM_grig will remain a part of #TSM, and continue to practice with both the Academy and LCS teams for the rest of the season. More details in the upcoming TSM Legends.

— TSM #TSM100 (@TSM) July 16, 2019

At the beginning of the Summer Split, TSM decided to experiment with their jungle position. This came as a shock to many, as Akaadian was a major player for the team in spring. It soon made sense though, as Grig appeared to outperform Akaadian in the early weeks of the split. Their early split was somewhat inconsistent as the team lost some important games. Grig had a much more explosive play-style, while Akaadian played relatively normally compared to other LCS junglers.

At Rift Rivals, TSM only managed to pick up a win against Fnatic with Akaadian in. Since then, Akaadian has played in every LCS game. It appeared as though the team would be moving back towards him, and this finally confirms it. Grig played exceptionally in the games he played on stage and was crucial for four of TSM's wins. But Akaadian has been on the upswing and seems to have broken out of the slump he was in at the beginning of the split.