Photo by lolesports
As the spring split ends, Cloud 9 look to make a move for NRG eSports' Top Laner Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong.
NRG entered the North American LCS upon purchasing the spot from Team Coast, assembling a mixture of Korean and NA talent that had little experience working with one another. Despite a rather rough split, NRG managed to place 5th-6th place in the LCS spring playoffs alongside veteran team Cloud 9. Now that the spring split is over, ESPN reports that Cloud 9 is exploring new options, crafting a potential trade with NRG involving Impact, a former world champion with SK Telecom T1 who has struggled to find success since moving to North America.
Should the deal go through, Cloud 9 would be bringing back long time favorite jungler William “Meteos” Hartman from his one year hiatus from the LCS due to current jungler Lee “Rush” Yoon-jae and mid laner Nicolai “Jensen” Jensen already filling the team’s two import positions. Bringing Impact on board would force Cloud 9 to run the top half of the map platoon style, either rolling out Impact and Meteos or Rush and top laner An “Balls” Le, giving the team flexibility for next split’s new best of three series format. Both NRG and Impact have yet to comment on the situation, and it will likely remain that way for several weeks until a concrete deal is made between the organizations.
Even with a 5th-6th place team, Impact scored high in kill participation and damage dealt across all of NA’s top laners. Having such an experienced and flexible top laner who already has more practice with the BO3 format would surely be an asset to C9, assuming they could build proper communication and synergy. Comment below how you believe Impact should choose to move forward, and what summer split will hold for these two teams.
