League of Legends LCK: Grading the offseason so far

Four days into the LCK offseason, we’ll give a quick breakdown of which Korean League of Legends teams have made moves and how good (or bad) they are.

For the second straight year, a Korean League of Legends team did not win, let alone play for, the World Championship. Despite this, the LCK was generally seen as much stronger during 2019 than the year prior. Through four days of free agency, teams are already doubling down on their push for a title.

We’ll be giving grades to all the LCK teams based on their offseason moves so far. However, just to preface all the questions, we will not be touching the situation with Griffin as a) there have been no roster moves made as of yet and b) the issues regarding ownership and coaching are clearly still an ongoing and sensitive matter. For the sake of the players, who have been put in such an awful situation, we can only hope for the best.

SKT extends Faker

SK Telecom T1 has kept their prized possession, mid laner and unkillable Demon King Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok in the fold for another year.

Grade: A

SKT didn’t overthink this one. Faker is still one of the best players in the world even on his worst day, and keeping him in black and red was an easy call.

DragonX extends Deft

Despite losing the “Kingzone” DragonX keeps around their star ADC Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu.

Grade: C+

Honestly, I think Deft gets a whole lot of hype for not a whole lot of production. He averaged the second-most deaths per game for an ADC and had pretty mediocre laning stats despite being paired with a solid support in Park “TusiN” Jong-ik. With TusiN likely gone, I think DragonX could have looked to find an upgrade.

SKT extends Effort

After losing several huge pieces including their coach, jungler, and top laner, SKT retained their support Lee “Effort” Sang-ho.

Grade: C

After a disappointing year from the presumed starting support Cho “Mata” Se-hyeong, Effort was at least decent in taking over the role. This is one of those moves that I don’t necessarily mind since he and ADC Park “Teddy” Jin-seong have built synergy, but again I think there was an opportunity to upgrade here.

KT Rolster acquires Aiming

After Kim “PraY” Jong-in had an uneven year, KT Rolster acquired promising young ADC Kim “Aiming” Ha-ram from the Afreeca Freecs.

Grade: A

While DragonX held onto a proven commodity that had a bit of a downturn, KT looks to rebound from their terrible year by acquiring one of the best young ADCs in Korean League of Legends. Aiming had the highest adjusted damage per minute (584.7 aDPM) and was the best laner (1.09 laning score) among LCK AD Carries in 2019.

Afreeca Freecs acquire Fly

To replace Son “Ucal” Woo-hyeon, Afreeca acquired veteran mid laner Song “Fly” Yong-jun.

Grade: D

I’m generally not a fan of teams bringing in retreads, especially in pivotal positions such as mid. Fly played well in 2019, don’t get me wrong, but he’s never shown himself to be more than an average mid in Korea.