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Vici Gaming: Easyhoon in, Mata out

Photo by LoLEsports

In an effort to gain an edge over the competition, Vici Gaming imports Korean mid laner Ji-hoon “Easyhoon” Lee, leaving them to part ways with Se-hyeong “Mata” Cho.

Throughout 2015, Vici Gaming struggled to match their competition in China’s League of Legends Pro League. Like many other Chinese teams, they looked towards Korea in order to improve their roster by recruiting recent world championship winners Se-hyeong “Mata” Cho and In-kyu “Dandy” Choi of Samsung Galaxy White. Despite such impressive players, Vici was consistently mediocre in the LPL with ranking 6th place in the regular summer split and playoffs, though, recently achieved a solid 3rd place in China’s NEST tournament.

With the recent departure of several SK Telecom members, Vici jumped at the chance to bring in more world class talent. According to a translation on an article from Naver, Vici’s new mid laner is none other than SKT’s former secondary mid laner Ji-hoon “Easyhoon” Lee. Due to Riot’s official rule of a team allowing no more than two imported players, this left Vici no choice but to remove Mata from the team. It is not yet known if he will remain in China or return to his home in Korea.

Following the news on Naver is an interview with Easyhoon to talk about his experiences on SKT. His main reason for leaving the two time world championship team was due to his lack of recognition as an individual player. It sure is hard to stand out from the shadow of League of Legends super star Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee. A translated statement from the interview follows:

The reason why I decided to move out of SKT was not because of teammates nor the coaching staff. It was after I played in the semifinals of the World Championship. I had the opportunity to start, and had very satisfactory performance in games 1 and 2. So I thought I would play in game 3 also, but Faker started for that game. When I was leaving the stage and Faker got on, everyone cheered "Faker!"

While I was leaving the stage, I had a lot of thoughts. 'What role and meaning do I exactly take in this team? Don't people ultimately want Faker?' -Easyhoon, 2015

Despite not playing quite as often as his counterpart, Easyhoon is seen as quite the dominating player in his own right. He had a stellar performance in the Worlds semi-finals against European all-stars Origen, and had a solid performance in the League Championship of Korea in the summer split that would bring SKT to a resounding 17-1 finish.

Vici’s new roster is undoubtedly impressive. Despite the lack of a support, having moved Dandy from top lane back to his former glory in the jungle with the addition of Easyhoon gives this team some real star power. As League of Legends heads towards its 6th competitive season, this team is sure to work their hardest to reach the top of the LPL bracket.

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