Which players are we talking about?

• Dane Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen (26, cover photo) is a midlaner for Team Liquid and has been playing there since November 2018. At 25, he has reportedly signed a €4.2 million contract in 2020 with 3 years left on his contract.
• Belgian Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer (23) has been playing at Fnatic since 2020. He still has a contract until 2023.

Jensen stated in a stream on November 7 that he might not play in 2022. Since then, that has become increasingly apparent.

What is the problem of the two players?

Both players have publicly commented that they probably won’t have a team for 2022 and won’t play professionally LoL.

• Jensen’s problem is that his team for 2022 is signing Bjergsen of all people, probably the best known LoL player in the US ever. He plays exclusively in midlane. There is apparently no place for Jensen in the new team. But Team Liquid probably doesn’t want to let its midlane star Jensen go “for free”.
• Nisqy, on the other hand, apparently wants or is supposed to leave Fnatic. They had a traumatic experience at LoL Worlds in 2021. But because he still has such a long contract, his team apparently demands a transfer fee. The sum is so high that interested parties have already waved it off and the negotiations collapsed. Actually, it was thought that Nisqy would move to Cloud 9 as a replacement for Perkz, but they have now put their top laner Fudge in midlane.

Jensen and Nisqy rank among top 10 mid-laners in West

Here’s what one analyst has to say about the situation: The site Inven has spoken to LoL analyst Isaac “Azael” Cummings about the situation that experienced and established LoL pros like Jensen and Nisqy are without a team for 2022.

He says both players deserve a spot in the LCS or LEC. There would be 20 starting midlane spots in the Western pro leagues. Jensen and Nisqy were at least among the top 10 at the position. They would have to be eligible to play for someone:

“The contracts got bigger and bigger. We see these hefty transfer sums. I think: this has led to some teams and players pushing their transfer sums to unreasonable levels. And now, as a result, a lot of players can’t find teams because nobody wants to spend that kind of money on them.

Azael

Azael says the transfer fee amount depends on supply and demand. You can say “Yo, the market value for this player is X million US dollars”. But if no one is willing to pay that price, then it’s just not market value anymore, he says.