And then there were none: Reigning LoL champions crash out of Worlds

Esports

Published: 31 Oct. 2023, 13:51 Updated: 31 Oct. 2023, 18:10

And then there were none: Reigning LoL champions crash out of Worlds

Members of DRX celebrate after winning the 2022 League of Legends World Championship in New York. Just one of the five winning players stayed with DRX in the 2023 season. [RIOT GAMES]

If you’re new to the international, fantastical, massively franchised world of the 150-million-player-large online game League of Legends, firstly welcome. Also, there’s a world championship going on in Korea, and it’s a big deal.

Local and global fans have booked out sports stadiums in Seoul and Busan to watch live matches, the Seoul Metropolitan Government planned a LoL-themed drone show over the Han River and K-pop girl group NewJeans sings this year’s Worlds anthem, “GODS,” with an animated music video based on last year's championship, a now-canon storyline. To catch you up, here's what happened.

Last November, five guys bested the odds to win the coveted Summoner’s Cup — the championship trophy named after the main game map, Summoner’s Rift — in what fans, and then marketers, called the ultimate underdog story.

Korea’s DragonX, or DRX, took down fellow Korean team T1 in the final, defeating their longtime regional rival 3-2 to take home the grand prize of nearly half a million USD — about 20 percent of a $2.23 million purse.

The winning DRX Roster: Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon, Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu, Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee, Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon and Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo.

The DRX squad poses onstage at the 2022 League of Legends World Championship Finals in November 2022 in San Francisco. [RIOT GAMES]

But things really haven't worked out for the DRX five this year.

Not a single member of last year's DRX squad will have a shot at personally defending their title following a mix of surprise early eliminations and failures to even land a spot in the tournament. DRX themselves, fielding a now almost entirely different squad, didn't even make it to the tournament.

Perhaps the biggest upset was Deft’s round-of-16 exit after current squad Dplus KIA’s 2-0 loss to fellow Korean team KT Rolster in an elimination match on Sunday. Pro gaming works like kind of football, with players signing individual contracts with different Esports organizations and moving on when they want to. Deft moved to Dplus KIA after winning Worlds last November.

The only other defending champion who returned to this year’s Worlds, Pyosik, now with North American Team Liquid, became one of the first players to be booted from the bracket after his team took three straight losses during the round robin Swiss Stage.

Two of the other DRX five, Kingen and Zeka, are current members of Korea’s Hanwha Life Esports. Their team failed to earn a spot at Worlds after losing to Dplus KIA in the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) regional finals in August.

Cho ″BeryL″ Geon-hee attends the League of Legends World Championship on Sunday in western Seoul. [RIOT GAMES]

Only one member of last year’s winning squad, BeryL, stayed with DRX. The team failed to qualify for Worlds (also after losing to Dplus KIA at the LCK regional finals) but BeryL has been seen attending the tournament where he is still treated like royalty (literally — they gave him a crown on Sunday).

Eight teams hailing from China, Korea and North America remain in the tournament, and the sudden-death quarterfinals begin in Busan on Thursday.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]