TSM's First LCS Championship (Spring 2013)

Lore & Background

TSM's League of Legends team won seven of the total sixteen splits of North America's League of Legends Championship Series (LCS).

Did You Know?

• In 2021, TSM signed a 10-year $210 million naming rights deal with FTX, later ended in 2022 after FTX declared bankruptcy.
• TSM signed chess Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura in August 2020.

From a College Blog to the LCS Stage

Long before TSM ever lifted an LCS trophy, the organization existed as nothing more than a college-era website. In September 2009, brothers Andy "Reginald" Dinh and Dan Dinh launched SoloMid.net, a blog dedicated to writing strategy guides for the then-emerging game League of Legends. The two had been active members of a player clan called All or Nothing during the game's beta testing phase, and that community eventually rebranded itself as SoloMid. A small group of dedicated players who represented the SoloMid.net community formed the nucleus of what would become a professional roster: SaintVicious, Chaox, TheOddOne, Locodoco, and Reginald himself. Team SoloMid was officially established in January 2011, just as Riot Games was preparing to launch the first season of the League Championship Series. By the time that inaugural professional split arrived, the original five had already begun to shift, setting the stage for a roster that would carry the organization through its early competitive years and ultimately to a championship in the Spring of 2013.

The Roster and the Manager

Between the team's official founding in January 2011 and the launch of the first LCS season later that year, TSM's lineup underwent a significant reshuffle. Two of the original five players—SaintVicious and Locodoco—departed from the roster. In their place, TheRainMan and Xpecial stepped in to complete what would become TSM's first professional League of Legends squad. Alongside the remaining original members Chaox, TheOddOne, and Reginald, this five-man lineup entered the inaugural competitive season. Off the field, Jack Etienne took on the role of general manager, providing the organizational structure that a group of former blog-community players needed to compete at a professional level. This roster, forged from the remnants of the All or Nothing clan and the SoloMid.net community, would go on to represent the United States-based organization through its early LCS campaigns. By the Spring of 2013, when TSM captured its first LCS title, the foundation laid by this original group of players and their manager had proven durable enough to sustain a championship run.

Reginald's 2013 Pivot

The Spring 2013 LCS championship arrived at a pivotal moment for the organization's co-founder. Andy "Reginald" Dinh, who had been one of the original five players representing the SoloMid.net community back when the team was first assembled, made the decision in 2013 to step away from the player roster entirely. His new role was to dedicate himself fully to running the TSM business, shifting his focus from in-game competition to the broader management and growth of the United States-based esports organization. This was not a sudden departure; it represented the natural evolution of a man who had co-founded the company alongside his brother Dan in September 2009, starting with a blog and a clan. By the time TSM's League of Legends team claimed its first LCS title that Spring, Reginald was already transitioning into the executive seat he would hold for years to come. The 2013 season thus marked a dual achievement: a competitive triumph for the roster and a structural milestone for the organization, as its founding player became its full-time business leader.

The Seeds of a Seven-Time Champion

Winning the Spring 2013 LCS title was not merely a single-season achievement; it was the opening chapter of what would become one of the most decorated runs in North American League of Legends history. The organization's League of Legends roster would ultimately collect seven of the sixteen total LCS splits, a record that cemented TSM's place as a perennial powerhouse in the United States-based competitive scene. The momentum from that first championship also fueled broader ambitions beyond a single title. In 2014, the organization broadened its competitive footprint into Hearthstone, bringing in MaSSan, Trump, and Kripparrian. The following year brought even greater diversification: TSM brought in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster previously belonging to Team Dignitas, alongside Leffen as its first Super Smash Bros. competitor. That 2015 season saw TSM's League of Legends roster take home the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship title for the first time, while their CS:GO division collected multiple international tournament victories. Though TSM ultimately dropped its CS:GO team by the end of that year, the Spring 2013 title had proven that the organization could compete at the highest level and build a multi-title identity around that success.