Team Liquid Releases Their Tekken and Street Fighter Players

Earlier this month, Team Liquid announced the release of their Street Fighter 5 roster composed of Naoki "Nemo" Nemoto and Ryota "John Takeuchi" Takeuchi. Today, they announced another fighting games competitor, Genki "Gen" Kumisaka, from the Tekken 7 competitive scene will also be leaving the team. This moves marks the end of Team Liquid's participation in traditional fighting game titles, at least for a time. The team remains part of the Smash Brothers scene both in Melee and Ultimate. 

Gen's leave is rather odd as he had been putting up incredible results in Topanga League x Tekken 7, winning season 1 in April last year, coming third in season 2 in August and winning season 3 last month with a clean 7-0 record. Due to this, we have to conclude that the player's release cannot be related to underperformance but a change in Team Liquid's strategy within the FGC.

For their part, Nemo and John Takeuchi have been mostly underwhelming in their performances this past year, neither had been able to cut into the top 8 of any event they participated in 2020. Nemo is even going winless for the Topanga Championship 2020 Season 2 in December, and John Takeuchi is not taking part in the event.

With no news of new pickups immediately after these releases, it remains to be seen if TL will continue to engage with traditional fighting games or inhabit Smash Bros for the foreseeable future. Stay up to date with all the news about Fighting games by following us on Facebook and Twitter or join our special Discord server to meet other players from the fighting games community. Tell us your opinion about this on our Forum!