The top laner of Invictus Gaming, Lee ‘Duke’ Ho-Seong has announced today that he is leaving the Invictus Gaming roster, with whom he’s been since 2016.
The former SK Telekom T1 World Champion posted a farewell message on his Weibo (Chinese social media), giving the reasons for his leave and thanking all the fans for support.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1GKa2AefG8
The main reason for leaving Invictus Gaming is the disappointing season for him and his teammates. He spent most of the year on the bench after Kang ‘TheShy’ Seung-lok took his starting spot. Invictus Gaming, on the other hand, was recently eliminated from the World Championship in quarterfinals by their rivals, Fun Plus Phoenix.
The 24-year old Korean veteran top laner joined the roster in 2016, after winning World Championship with SK Telekom T1. Invictus Gaming failed to deliver during the 2017 year, failing to win both the Spring and Summer split of the LPL. As a result, for the 2018 season, the management of Invictus Gaming made some changes to the roster. Substitute top laner ‘TheShy’ became the starter top laner, and the bot lane was changed to Yu ‘JackeyLove’ Wen-Bo and support Wang ‘Baolan’ Liu-Yi.
With the revamped roster, Invictus Gaming went to dominate the LPL season, culminating their success during the World Championship 2018, where they managed to bring home the title. While Invictus Gaming was celebrating the win with their roster, Duke was left out in the dark, playing a couple of games that were not decisive.
Although Duke is leaving the Invictus Gaming roster, he said, ‘I am grateful for the three years I’ve spent on the team.’
Currently, there are no news about where he might go or if he will transition to a coaching role instead.
There have been recent rumors of some transfers around the LCK, including the return of Korean players from China to coach positions. No names were provided by those who are spreading the rumors, but it’s safe to assume that there will be significant changes this year in LCK after their loss again at the World Championship.
Duke, with his tremendous experience and two World Championships on two different teams in two different regions, will most likely still look for opportunities to play. Again, a swap to a coach position should not be excluded considering his skills might have dropped while sitting on the bench for an entire year.
A lot of contracts are expiring in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned for the news about transfers around all the important regions in the following weeks.
