Familiar faces under a new banner.
First time since its inaugural split in 2013, LCS will be played without CLG participating in the league. One of the founding members of the North American League of Legends scene, CLG said goodbye to LCS and its fans at the start of April when they closed down their esport operations, with the LCS vertical sold to NRG Esports.
NRG took over the infrastructure of CLG, along with a very promising roster that’s been improving ever since they got together in 2022. The group of five young players CLG brought together turned this org from a consistent bottom-two finisher to a top-four regular season team. But unlike the regular season, they could not find success in the postseason, never moving past sixth place during the playoffs. So coming into the 2023 LEC Summer Split, NRG and the coaching staff decided some changes were necessary, and parted ways with the long-time bot lane duo of Fatih “Luger” Güven and Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere.
NRG LCS Roster for the 2023 Summer
- Top lane: Niship “Dhokla” Doshi
- Jungle: Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia
- Mid lane: Cristian “Palafox” Palafox
- AD Carry: Victor “FBI” Huang
- Support: Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun
It’s finally time to reveal our NRG LCS roster…
Please welcome @VictorHuang and @IgNarLoL to NRG League of Legends pic.twitter.com/MHdbTpiX2f
— NRG League (@NRGLeague) May 27, 2023
Luger and Poome have been a formidable bot lane during their year and a half in the LCS, but on more than one occasion their individual mistakes in high-pressure playoff games cost CLG heavily. Maybe thinking they would need more experience in these situations, NRG went with a new bot lane consisting of two very familiar names, Victor “FBI” Huang and Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun.
IgNar and FBI come with a lot of experience on their hands. Both players played in multiple finals and made multiple appearances on the international stage. FBI won the LCS with 100T in 2021 and is just returning to that form with a great split with Evil Geniuses. He is also a very great fit for a team like NRG. For example, this team loved to play Seraphine lanes with Luger to draft aggressive top sides, and FBI was the only notable ADC in the league willing to play these lanes besides CLG. Although his bot lane partner is more of a question mark. Ever since his back-to-back finals on FlyQuest, IgNar struggled to reach the same career highs, but he was always one of the best supports if the meta favors roaming and apparently FBI wanted to play with him this split.
Thankfully, the top side trio remains the same for Summer, which is great since CLG’s identity of creative drafts and aggressive, no punches pulled playstyle mainly came from them. Split after split, these three players are continuing to prove themselves to be at the top of their roles in LCS, despite getting snubbed for All-Pro teams. They are not the most consistent players, but they came with a lot of upside to explode games out of nowhere. Summer Split will also be one of the first times they aren’t coming into the split as an underdog team, they are expected to keep their top-four streak while improving their playoff record. They have the necessary talent for it, and with the consistency FBI brings to the bot lane, they might just do it.
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