Echo Fox hires former TSM & Immortals coach Ssong
By Josh Tyler
Echo Fox makes their first big move of the offseason, acquiring the former coach of the year in Ssong. With a young roster and star top laner, the cards are there for Ssong to repeat his magical Immortals days.
Two years ago, Kim “Ssong” Sang-soo, was shocking North America and the world when he brought a plucky, underdog Immortals team all the way to the 2017 World Championship. One year later, he was unceremoniously dismissed as head strategic coach of TSM after the team missed the World Championship for the first time in the organization’s history. Now, he’s moving on to a new challenge.
Newsweek has reported that Ssong has agreed to become the next head coach of Team Echo Fox, taking over for current head coach Thomas “Thinkcard” Slotkin. It is unclear what role, if any, Thinkcard will have with the organization going forward.
During his time with Immortals, Ssong took an Immortals team that finished the spring split with an 8-10 record and underwhelming results, and brought them to the summer split finals following a 14-4 record in the regular season. Although they were downed by TSM in the 2017 Summer NA LCS Championship, Ssong impressed enough to capture Coach of the Year honors.
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He took over a totally new team in TSM in 2018, with hefty expectations. In addition to his coaching, the team added Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen and Alfonso “Mithy” Aguirre Rodríguez for the bot lane along with the prior year’s rookie of the split in Mike “MikeYeung” Yeung.
Unfortunately, TSM got out to a rough start and were below .500 halfway through the split. As a result, Ssong was demoted from head strategic coach in June with assistant coach Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik taking over on an interim basis.
On Echo Fox, Ssong will have an advantage of being with another Korean import in star top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon.
Next. Ambition and Crown announce they are leaving Gen.G. dark
What do you think, will Ssong return to his coach of the year form on Echo Fox?