Invictus Gaming is blowing up its LPL roster before 2022 season

Dec 6, 2021

Reading time: 2 min

Invictus Gaming appears to be cleaning house on its LPL roster, with players departing left, right, and center.

Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok was the first to announce his free agency in November following the end of Worlds 2022. Song “Rookie” Eui-jin announced his departure from Invictus Gaming a few days ago on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Zhang “Wink” Rui, and Gao “Ming” Zhen-Ning seem to be leaving, and social media mosts suggest that Su “Southwind” Zhi-Lin, the support for the team, may very well be the next to leave. Invictus Gaming’s promising roster seems to be falling apart before fans’ eyes.

Rookie annouces himself as a free agent now.

He is still negotiating with iG, but also looking for other options.

The legendary solo lane duo Rookie+TheShy are both FA now.#LPL #lolesports pic.twitter.com/dqCBTziNnF
— HUPU Esports (@HupuEsports) December 3, 2021

Weibo posts by a variety of players were picked up by Chinese esports news outlets and fans on Reddit, leading to speculation that Invictus Gaming was going through a series of substantial internal issues that have led to the rapid dissolution of its roster. Wink and Ming both indicated they were likely to be leaving the organization on the same day, and Southwind published a post saying goodbye on his Weibo profile.

Where will Invictus Gaming’s roster go?

Community speculation has leaned towards TheShy departing to join the ex-Suning Gaming roster, now Weibo Gaming.

Invictus Gaming’s previous roster failed to make the 2021 summer playoffs after a heartbreaking loss to Team WE heading into the bracket stage of the summer split. Despite their incredibly high potential, the roster appears to have been unable to find an agreeable solution with the organization Though not all of them saw the peak of Invictus Gaming’s Worlds win, the team’s dissolution puts plenty of talented players up for grabs.

Rookie’s destination is still unknown, but it seems unlikely that he will return to his previous team, despite still being in discussions with the organization. Given the departure or apparent departure, of so many of his teammates, Rookie is unlikely to be the sole holdout. This also means that IG’s roster in the next split is almost entirely up in the air.