Esports Player Transfers: Who Are the The League of Legends Free Agents?

DAMWON Gaming Kk Oma
The world champion has a new coach. (Image Credit: DAMWON Gaming)

Every second Tuesday, we bring you the latest player transfers from the world of esports. Besides numerous transfers in LoL, there are also rumors about a new CS:GO team and two Call of Duty teams changing their names.

Is FalleN creating a new CS:GO team? Is a Dota 2 legend switching to a legendary team and what will the League of Legends free agency bring? So many rumors, so many changes. Let's dig in:

Team ENCE: Restructures

There is a lot going on at ENCE. With Joona's 'doto' Forss and Eetu 'sAw' Saha, the organization completed their roster for the IEM Beijing Haidian.

After Aerial and Twista left ENCE, sAw will now take over the role of coach, while doto will play as Lurker. Both newcomers previously played for HAVU.

Shortly after, however, ENCE got hit with a loss: Jere 'sergej' Salo left the active roster due to an apparent lack of motivation.

Sergej will use the time to do his military service and Tuomas 'SADDYX' Louhimaa will represent him as a stand-in during the DreamHack Masters' Winter Europe.

Heretics: xms Leaves the Org

Alexandre 'xms' Forté is now leaving the team completely after he had been absent for the last two months for health reasons.

Besides his health problems, xms also speaks of an unpleasant climate within the team, especially after Nivera switched to Vitality. He now wants to take a few weeks off and relax, but is open to offers from teams in France, Europe or North America.

Mousesports: mithR as new coach

The former Renegades Coach Torbjørn 'mithR' Nyborg is the new Head Coach of mousesports.

After four months in the Australian organization, mithR must now prove himself in Europe. He replaces Rejin, who had to leave the team during the ESIC investigation into the Spectator Bug scandal.

GODSENT: kRYSTAL is benched

In-Game Leader Kevin 'kRYSTAL' Amend leaves the active roster.

The organization has already started to test Luka 'emi' Vuković as a replacement. However, there are currently serious rumors that the two Brazilian CS:GO legends and former MIBR players FalleN and fer are planning to make a new team. If the rumors are to be believed, they want to join up with the GODSENT players. FalleN has suggested forming a team with STYKO, ten and maggots, which would leave only farlig, after kRYSTALS was benched. We are curious if the rumors will come true.

DOTA 2: A legend changes teams

Evil Geniuses steal iceiceice

Daryl Koh 'iceiceice' Pei Xiang leaves Fnatic after two years and will go to North America.

He will support the American organization as an offlaner and will leave the SEA region for the first time – the organization where he made a name for himself with Fnatic. Although the team has not yet made an international breakthrough, they dominated the SEA region and iceiceice became one of the most iconic players in the scene.

HellRaiser: Only two players left

Arslan 'xanni' Shandjanov and Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov were put on the bench, while Rinat 'KingR' Abdullin is now a free agent.

After bad results in previous events, they want to try to build a new team around the two remaining players, Alexander 'Nix' Levin and Ilya 'Lil' Ilyuk.

League of Legends: The Free-Agency Phase Has Begun

DAMWON Gaming: KkOma as new coach

The Worlds 2020 Champions DAMWON have a new head coach in Kim 'kkOma' Jeong-gyun.

Shortly after the organization said goodbye to their coaches Daeny and Zefa, it was announced that kkOma will be the new coach. Everyone knows kkOma, as a founding member of SKT T1 where he started at Worlds 2013 with a team that won two Worlds titles in 2015 and 2016. After he made a detour to Vici Gaming in 2019, he is now back in the LCK.

DAMWON Coaches to T1

The just mentioned former coaches of DAMWON, Lee 'Zefa' Jae-min and Yang 'Daeny' Dae-in, are now the new coaches of T1. In addition, Choi 'Polt' Seong-hun is the new General Manager and three-time World Champion Bae 'Bengi' Seong-woong is the new head coach of the Academy Team.

We are excited to see what the new coaches, with Polt as General Manager, can get out of T1 and wish the team success.

KT Rolster: 7 players are leaving

Top Laner Song 'Smeb' Kyung-ho, Kim 'SoHwan' Jun-yeong and Jeon 'Ray' Ji-won, as well as junglers Kim 'Malrang' Geun-seong and Kim 'BonO' Gi-beom are leaving KT Rolster along with Mid Laner Lee 'Kuro' Seo-haeng and Support Park 'TusiN' Jong-ik. This begs the question... who is even left?

annyeonghaseyo kt Rolster ibnida. jeohyi kt Rolsterneun SoHwan gimjunyeong, bonO gimgibeom, Kuro iseohaeng, TusiN bagjongig seonsuwa sangho habyihae gyeyageul jongryohage doeeossseubnida. geudongan kt...

Posted by KTrolseuteo(Rolster-Story) on Monday, November 16, 2020

The team tried hard to qualify for the Worlds 2020, but could not hold their own against Afreeca Freecs in the LCK Regional Finals. In order to have a complete team again for the coming season, KT now has to find a top laner, a jungler and a support.

100 Thieves: Closer and FBI to go 100T?

If the rumors are true, Carry Victor 'FBI' Huang and Can 'Closer' Çelik will switch over to 100 Thieves.

According to Travis Gafford, 100 Thieves agreed with the Golden Guardians that the two players would change teams. Both teams have had rather mixed success, but with the trade, the Golden Guardians would have to restructure a bit. We are excited to see what the two NA teams will have to offer next season.

DRX: 4 players are leaving

Choi 'Doran' Hyeon-joon, Jeong 'Chovy' Ji-hoon, Kim 'Deft' Hyuk-kyu and Ryu 'Keria' Min-seok are all leaving DRX.

After a disappointing elimination at the Worlds 2020, DRX dismissed four players. They want to build a new team for the next season. The four players who were let go should have no problems finding a new team: All four played at the highest level last year and are probably on the top of many teams' wish lists.

Flyquest: New Jungler

Rumor has it that the Latin American junior player Brandon "Josedeodo" Villegas will switch to Flyquest. Josedeodo played with Rainbow7 at the Worlds 2020 and has since been praised several times as the best youngster in Latin America since Oddie. In his Free Agency Show, journalist Jacob Wolf mentioned that Josedeodo will switch to Flyquest. We will have to wait and see if the rumors are true.

TSM: Are SwordArt and Huni coming?

Two more rumors: Allegedly, TSM will sign Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh and Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon.

According to Pablo Suárez of Esportmaníacos, the LMS and LPL veteran will replace SwordArt as the new Bottom Laner Biofrost. Jacob Wolf also announced that Huni will move from Evil Geniuses to TSM.

Also, TSM allegedly wants to buy Huni out of his contract with Evil Geniuses to replace Broken Blade. Again, we have to wait and see if these rumors come true.

Cloud9: Nisqy leaves the team

Yasin "Nisqy" Dinçer leaves Cloud9!

The Mid Laner leaves the team after two years and is a Free Agent for the time being. Nisqy joined Cloud9 at the end of 2018 and helped the team to a third-place finish in the playoffs in the first split in 2019.

Call of Duty: Two new teams?

OpTic Gaming LA = LA Thieves. After 100 Thieves purchased the Call of Duty League spot from OpTic Gaming LA, they will be competing as the LA Thieves in the upcoming season.

New LA Thieves Roster:

  • Austin "SlasheR" Liddicoat
  • Kenny "Kuavo" Williams
  • Thomas "TJHaLy" Haly
  • Zack "Drazah" Jordan
  • Eric "Muddawg" Sanders (Manager)

The OpTic Gaming franchise will continue to be owned by Hector "H3CZ" Rodriguez, CEO of the Chicago Huntsmen.

Chicago Huntsmen = OpTic Chicago

As the OpTic Gaming franchise remains with H3CZ, the CEO of the Chicago Huntsmen, he renamed his team to OpTic Chicago. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

However, there will be no changes to the existing roster. With Scump, FormaL, Envoy and Dashy, OpTic Chicago still has one of the most promising teams for the next season.

That's it for this week. Everything else from the world of gaming and esports can be found on EarlyGame. Until then, you can catch up on all the transfers here.

Original Article by Lukas Ballat

Paul Hayes

I did my BA in English Lit. and Language Studies at Western University in Canada and I use to play MTG competitively, but sadly to no success so I write instead! If a game doesn't challenge me, it's not the...