Marta J. November 23, 2019
SK Gaming has reportedly signed Kim “Trick” Gang-yun as the jungler for the 2020 League of Legends European Championship roster, ESPN’s reporter Jacob Wolf claims.
If the leak is true, Trick will be transferring from Schalke 04 Esports, the team he spent the 2019 LEC Summer split with and finished the regular season in fourth place. The news came just a few days after SK Gaming said goodbye to Oskar "Selfmade" Boderek, who joined Fnatic’s main roster.
So far, SK has only announced that top laner Toni “Sacre” Sabalić and mid laner Janik “Jenax” Bartels will be staying on the team for another season. With Trick joining, SK still needs to announce who will play in the bottom lane.
Trick decides to stay in LEC for another season
Trick is a South Korean player that has been competing between multiple regions over the past few years. He first moved to Europe to play for G2 Esports in 2016, after having played his first season under CJ Entus’ banner in Korea.
He was a part of the first G2 roster that performed in the top European league, straight away winning the regular season and qualifying for the 2016 World Championship. Although G2's performance wasn’t satisfying at Worlds, Trick stayed with the roster for another year and was at the top of the regional league once again, leading to G2 finishing another disappointing run short of the playoffs at Worlds 2017.
With the start of the 2018 LoL Champions Korea season, Trick returned to his home country to play for bbq Olivers, but it ended up being a disappointing season. bbq failed to qualify for the 2019 LCK season, so Trick decided to go back to Europe where he eventually joined Schalke for the 2019 LEC season.
SK Gaming looking for a better 2020 season in Europe
Trick will be staying in Europe to play with SK, a team that has been around since the beginning of the EU LCS and has seen some domestic success. However, the team hasn’t qualified for a World Championship event since 2014.
SK Gaming had a disappointing run in 2019 and failed to qualify for the playoffs after finishing the regular season in seventh place. SK was losing more than winning, so it comes as no surprise that the organization is shuffling its roster for the 2020 season and bringing a player with a lot of experience such as Trick.