Team EnVyUs (listed on lolesports.com as Team Envy) has retained three key talents from the original LA Renegades roster.
Top laner Shin “Seraph” Woo-yeong came to North America in 2014 to play for Counter Logic Gaming, but enjoyed very limited success in the professional scene, flirting with LCS and Challenger Series teams before undergoing something of a professional renaissance, finding his niche in the 2016 Spring Split.
According to LCS rules, he has achieved residency status despite being Korean-born, so EnVyUs may be looking abroad to fill one of the remaining two roster spots left unannounced.
(Courtesy of Riot Esports flickr)
One of these import slots is already filled by their second signing, mid laner Noh “Ninja” Geon-woo. He’s already played in three major regions in his career and was the starting mid laner for Team WE in 2014. In his best stretch as a professional player, he won IEM Shenzhen (Season IX) and competed in various other tournaments in China, but his time in North America has not seen him show his true colors. Visa issues in 2015 did not allow him to play and his team were relegated to CS, and the following year his involvement in an attempt at poaching a Korean player saw him suspended for two months, further impeding his progress. He will be coming in to the Summer Split with a will to fight and to prove that he can perform well in the NALCS, as he did in the latter half of the Spring split with Renegades.
The third acquisition, support player Nickolas “Hakuho” Surgent, has been hanging around the Challenger scene since 2014, playing on various teams without making much of a splash. When he came in to replace Maria “Remi” Creveling last split, expectations were not high, but he has at least met them and is looking to improve further this split.
According to ESPN, the roster will hopefully be finalized in the next couple days as the team’s management is negotiating contracts with a jungler and an AD Carry. This team already has strong laners in both Seraph and Ninja, so a jungler that can use map pressure efficiently would make waves on their roster. AD Carry is usually the role where mechanics dominate, so any skilled marksman will be fine. Either they decide to complement their Korean speakers with a Korean jungler, or they grab an incredibly skilled AD Carry with their last import slot.
EnVyUs has a storied past and if an organization can make a durable team in the NALCS to compete against the likes of Counter Logic Gaming, Cloud 9, Immortals and TSM, it could well be them.
