After winning the LoL World Championship just under a month ago, DRX will have an almost completely different roster in 2023.
Nobody expected this 2022 DRX roster to challenge for the Worlds Finals, let alone win it all. But in what might be the biggest cinderella story in League of Legends history, DRX proved everyone wrong time and time again and managed to lift the Worlds 2022 trophy. But as always happens when a team wins as a dark horse, the speculations started the day after the Finals about the futures of DRX players. It was a reasonable expectation that there would be some changes to the squad, especially with players like Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo shining individually, but there was still hope that the organization would be running it back one more time.
Unfortunately for the DRX fans, the team wasn’t able to bring the majority of the 2022 roster back. And in a series of official Twitter posts today, DRX unveiled their new roster for the 2023 LCK Spring Split. The only player remaining with the team is the support Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee. The full roster for DRX in 2023:
- Top lane: Kim “Rascal” Kwang-hee (from KT Rolster)
- Jungle: Kim “Croco” Dong-beom (from Liiv SANDBOX)
- Mid lane: Yoo “FATE” Su-hyeok (from Kwangdong Freecs)
- Bot lane: Seo “deokdam” Dae-gil (from DWG KIA)
- Support: Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee
Once again, DRX BeryL
DRX announces Jo ‘BeryL’ Geon-hee, a member of Worlds 2022 Champions, is back to DRX LCK team. Please give him a lot of attention and support to him who will pave the way for 2023 DRX.#DRXWIN #PaveTheWay pic.twitter.com/QUuqZ3pc3R
— Worlds 2022 Champions DRX (@DRXGlobal) December 3, 2022
End of the DRX’s month-long era
From winning the Worlds Finals on November 5 to this roster announcement at the start of December, DRX fans had less than a month to celebrate this five-man squad. Still, the majority of the four players who left will keep playing in LCK. The Finals MVP Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon and star mid laner Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo will be joining Hanwa Life Esports in an attempt at a super team, and the veteran ADC Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu is signing with DWG KIA as deokdam’s replacement. And the jungler Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon will be moving to North America to join Team Liquid.
Still, not all hope is lost for the DRX fans. Rascal, Croco and FATE are all highly regarded players in LCK, and all three have shown a lot of good things in their previous teams. And deokdam was one of the biggest ADC prospects in Korea during his time with Nongshim RedForce and put up a good showing at Worlds despite a down 2022. At the end of the 2022 Summer regular season, there would be many fans and analysts that would have preferred this roster over DRX Worlds-winning one, based on the performances at the time.
Another good news is that DRX was able to retain and bolster their coaching staff. Shin “Shine” Dong-wook who was the interim head coach during the Worlds run re-signed with the team as an assistant coach, while Kim “Micro” Mok-kyoung is brought in as the head coach. Micro was the owner and coach of DAMWON during their rise to the top of LCK from Challengers Korea, and he spent the last year as the head coach of Liiv SANDBOX.
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