According to a report from The Daily Dot, Team Liquid will be looking to replace Support player Alex "Xpecial" Chu on their League of Legends roster following a disappointing finish to the LCS Summer Split. Liquid finished the regular season in first place, but after unexpected losses in both the playoffs and gauntlet, the team did not qualify for the World Championships, and apparently feel some change is needed.

The report states that jungler Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera has been given control over the roster, and he feels some younger talent is needed to energize the squad. They are apparently looking at Andy "Smoothie" Ta, who had been playing for Team Dragon Knights. With that team relegated and aiming to re-build, Smoothie is available, and Liquid might be interested. The young Support player certainly showed that has has quite a bit of skill, and it seems Rivera feels he might be just what Liquid needs.

Xpecial has been considered one of the top Support players in North America for a long time now, but struggled to live up to his own standards throughout this split. Some may point to communication issues due to the language barrier with Korean ADC Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin, while it's also worth noting that Xpecial's mechanical play, vision control, and other aspects of the individual game were not up to snuff.

If this move is made, it'll mark the second time in as many years that Xpecial will have been replaced by a top-level team in favor of a younger, less-proven player. Team SoloMid replaced him with Nicolas "Gleeb" Haddad last year, and while that didn't end up working out for TSM, it did show that Chu's typically strong play and experience may not be enough. For now, we'll have to wait and see what Team Liquid ultimately decides to do.