Player moves start in earnest as dust settles after LoL Worlds

Days after Korean Esports team T1 claimed victory at this year’s League of Legends World Championship, dozens of contracts for players and coaches across Korea’s top-level circuit expired with one season’s end marking the start of the next.

Members of Gen.G Esports bow after victory during the Swiss Stage of the 2023 League of Legends World Championship in October in Seoul. [RIOT GAMES]

Days after Korean Esports team T1 claimed victory at this year’s League of Legends World Championship, dozens of contracts for players and coaches across Korea’s top-level circuit expired with one season’s end marking the start of the next.

A storm of thank you messages flooded teams’ social media pages, aptly timed to the week of America’s Thanksgiving, with photographs of departing members tacked on to graphics serving as their official exit announcements.

Korea's Gen.G Esports shares a farewell message to four departing players on social media platform X on Tuesday. [SCREENCAPTURE]

Like in most professional sports, League of Legends players generally sign contracts with teams for one-, two- or even three-year terms. At the end of the year, players without an active contract can go on the market as free agents while teams go shopping for next season’s lineup.

Among the highest-profile departures was the four-man exit at Korea’s Gen.G Esports, which had entered Worlds as the top-seed from Korea and had been undefeated at the tournament until they were knocked out during the quarterfinals.

“As of today, our contracts with Choi ‘Doran’ Hyeonjun, Han ‘Peanut’ Wangho, Jung ‘Chovy’ Jihun, and Yu ‘Delight’ Hwanjung have ended. Their dedication and unwavering effort was an immense driver behind our accomplishments, and with sincere gratitude, we wish them all success and happiness in their next chapters,” Gen.G Esports said in a statement posted online Tuesday.

Chovy, 22, had been with the team for two years and competed for the Korean national team at the Hangzhou Asian Games in October. He had replaced star player Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, of T1, on the five-man lineup for most of the tournament as Lee had been dealing with an illness.

Contracts for two other members of Korea’s gold-medal squad, Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok, 23, and Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk, 24, with Chinese team JD Gaming also expired on Monday. JD Gaming lost to former Games teammates on T1 at this year’s Worlds semifinals in Busan. They had not made new announcements for the 2024 season as of press time.

T1 had competed at this year’s Worlds with an unchanged roster — an anomaly in the professional world of Esports, where some of the best players each year are new to the circuit, in their late teens or early twenties.

Members of Korea's T1 celebrate on stage after defeating Chinese team Weibo Gaming 3-0 to win the 2023 League of Legends World Championship on Sunday in Seoul. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

All but one of the 2022 champions, on Korean team DRX, had traded in their jerseys for new teams, with one player moving from the Korean circuit to North America.

But for T1, all five members of the squad who defeated Chinese team Weibo Gaming to win the championship in Seoul on Sunday will stay for another term. Contracts for Ryu “Keria” Min-seok and Choi “Zeus” Woo-je, who both played also on Korea’s national team, and Lee "Gumayusi" Min-hyeong had expired after Sunday, but T1 announced on Wednesday that all three have re-signed.

Two players on T1’s championship-winning squad, Faker, 27, and Mun "Oner" Hyeon-jun, 20, were still under contract with the team. Faker, a part-owner of T1, is under contract until 2025 while Oner’s deal ends after next season.

And T1 head coach Kim "kkOma" Jeong-gyun, who also led Korea’s national team in September, will return, the team announced Tuesday in a drama-filled, pre-filmed minute-long video.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]