Marta J. December 4, 2019
Hanwha Life Esports has signed Son "Lehends" Si-woo as the team's new support for the upcoming LCK competitive season, Fomos’ reporter “Kenzi” shared on Twitter.
Lehends is joining the overhauled HLE soon after he and the rest of the former Griffin roster announced free agency. Even though Griffin had a better run at the 2019 League of Legends Champions Korea than did HLE, the organization is likely losing its spot in the league after a number of controversies regarding player contracts surfaced.
Hanwha Life Esports is overhauling its roster for 2020
HLE finished the regular season ninth and wasn’t even close to qualifying for the 2019 World Championship. But this could soon change when the 2020 LCK Spring starts this January.
The organization completely overhauled its previous roster. Lehends will be joining Jeon "Zenit" Tae-gwon, Lee "CuVee" Seong, Kang "Haru" Min-seung, and Kang "Tempt" Myung-gu. Besides Tempt, who has been with HLE since 2018, all other players are new to the team and all are coming from some of the most respected teams in the region, including T1 and KT Rolster.
Fans believe HLE’s new team has great potential to climb to the top of the LCK and be one of the three teams that will represent Korea at the 2020 Worlds. On the other hand, Lehends’ former team Griffin’s destiny is looking to be completely the opposite, as Riot Games Korea will probably be removing Griffin from the league.
Lehends leaves Griffin to join HLE
Even though Griffin finished the regular season first and qualified for Worlds where the team finished in the top eight, Riot has asked for a complete overhaul of its ownership and management, as well as for new and fair contracts for any new players if they wish to compete further.
As that hasn’t happened yet, nor has Griffin announced any intention to sign new players, 2019 was likely the last fans have seen from the team. Now, HLE wants to take its place at the top by signing players that have international experience under their belt.
Lehends started competing in 2016 and joined Griffin quickly after. The team was still competing in the 2018 Champions Korea Spring when the new roster started demolishing everyone in front of them, climbing to the top of the LCK by the end of 2019.
Although a young player, Lehends brings the experience and dedication HLE needs for its own Cinderella story.