LoL streamer Christian “IWillDominate” Rivera was the first to unveil the news with a post on his Twitter page, where he voiced his disagreement with CLG’s decision to bench Pobelter for the upcoming week of LCS matches.

“You know I got my ear to the ground with this s***, so let me inform you that for some god forsaken reason Pobelter is benched for this week of LCS,” read IWillDominate’s tweet.

Counter Logic have yet to confirm or deny the statement, but IWillDominate��s reputation in the American LoL scene and the follow-up responses from other prominent names in the industry suggest Pobelter’s benching is all but confirmed.

Pobelter joined Counter Logic Gaming in February 2020 as a replacement for Lee “Crown” Min-ho, who left to play for OZ Gaming in the Challengers Korea (CK) league. Despite his renown as one of the most experienced still-active players in the North American LoL scene, the 23-year-old star has failed thus far in his attempt to bring CLG back to their former glory.

With Pobelter, Counter Logic finished last in the LCS 2020 Spring with a disastrous 3-15 record, which marked the organisation��s worst-ever split in the competition. While things started to look up for the two-time LCS champions at the start of the LCS 2020 Summer when they climbed to second place with a 4-2 record in Week 3, CLG have since gone to pieces with nine losses in 10 outings. They enter the ninth and final week of the LCS 2020 Summer ranked eighth with a 5-11 record, which puts them dangerously close to a bottom-two finish.

Even though Pobelter has averaged the worst KDA (2.11) out of all LCS mid laners this split, there are arguments to be made that he is not the real reason for Counter Logic’s downfall. Besides the experience and the deep champion pool he brings to the squad, Pobelter has also put up solid KPAR (70.7%) and CSPM (9.11) averages.

With Pobelter benched, it��s likely Counter Logic Gaming will promote academy mid laner Jean-S��bastien “Tuesday” Thery to the main roster for their final two matches of the LCS Summer against FlyQuest and Cloud9. While Tuesday has no previous experience playing in North America’s top flight, this split has taught us that the academy rosters are filled with LCS-calibre talent – as Immortals have found out.

Counter Logic Gaming will face FlyQuest next on Saturday, August 8 at 16:00 PST, followed by their final match of the split against Cloud9 on Sunday at 14:00.

As reported earlier this month, Team Liquid have found themselves in a predicament due to the ongoing visa issues which could prevent their new signing Broxah, Shern ��Shernfire�� Cherng Tai and their head coach Jang ��Cain�� Nu-ri from joining the team ahead of 2020 LCS season kick-off.

Since the team’s co-owner Steve ��LiQuiD112�� Arhancet took the issue public on his Twitter, the League of Legends community offered Team Liquid a handful of solution for their problem – from signing their former member Christian ��IWDominate�� Rivera, to giving Julian ��Tarzaned�� Farokhian a chance to prove himself in the professional scene and even promoting Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni to the main roster. However, it seems like Team Liquid were not prepared for any drastic changes, and instead opted to relocate Pobelter to their active roster as their new temporary starting jungler.

Pobelter: Put me in coach@Pobelter: Ok pic.twitter.com/BxK3lKlgXO

— Team Liquid LoL (@TeamLiquidLoL) January 8, 2020

Pobelter is a former professional League of Legends player, who started his career as a top laner in August 2011, when he joined Team Curse. In June 2012, he moved to Meat Playground, where he took up the role of mid laner, which became his prefered role throughout his eight-year-long career.

In January 2013 he re-joined with Curse, but due to his young age, which prevented him from playing in the LCS, Pobelter was moved to Curse’s academy team. Pobelter later played for several teams including Infinite Odds, Evil Geniuses, Winterfox, CLG, Immortals and Team Liquid. In December 2018, Pobelter joined FlyQuest where he competed in the 2019 LCS, but due to team’s poor results, he got released in December 2019, leaving him without a team.

After his departure from FlyQuest, Pobelter struggled to find a new home, which ultimately led to his decision to not play in the 2020 LCS. The 23-year-old, however, has not declared retirement but instead expressed he is determined to one day make a return in the LCS and as it seems, he just might get that chance later this month as Team Liquid��s new jungler for the 2020 LCS Spring Split.

While a surprising decision for Team Liquid to relocate Pobelter to a position he never played before, the move was already rumoured last weekend, when Team Liquid posted a Twitter post, showcasing Pobelter playing a jungle role on his stream. While that post was an obvious hint from TL, the LoL community did not take it very seriously, given that Pobelter has no experience in the said role.

Put me in Coach pic.twitter.com/9pKa1ZiVq4

— Team Liquid LoL (@TeamLiquidLoL) January 4, 2020

Whether we will get to see former mid laner turned coach try out as TL’s new jungler, however, is not 100% confirmed as of yet. Team Liquid clarified that the situation is only temporary and that there is a possibility Broxah will get his visa sorted out before the start of the season.

As of today, however, no information about any progress on Broxah’s visa has been announced and with 2020 LCS Spring Split just a couple of weeks away, the return of Pobelter seems like a very likely outcome.