Team Griffin just announced the signing of some new League of Legends team members heading into the 2020 season. They’ve picked up top laner Park “Untara” Ui-jin, who previously played for T1, and former DragonX mid Yoo “NaeHyun” Nae-hyun. Additionally, the South Korean organization has grabbed Han “H Dragon” Sang-yong as their head coach. H Dragon previously coached different Jin Air teams, most notably Jin Air Green Wings for the last five years.
Griffin still has several players from their previous roster on the team, even though many left following the recent drama. Jungler Lee “Tarzan” Seung-yong and bot laner Park “Viper” Do-hyeon, along with Untara and NaeHyun, are expected to start for the team. That said, Griffin still needs a player in the support role following Son “Lehends” Si-woo’s departure.
From miracle to menace
Griffin’s story can be best described as a giant rollercoaster of ups and downs. Emerging from Challengers Korea with mostly unknown players, nobody could predict what this team would be able to do. Finishing second in their first split, the team made it all the way to the LCK finals. Once there, they lost in a close series to KT Rolster and, similar to the finals, lost in the regional finals to Gen.G as well. However, this was still a miraculous achievement for a team that had played in Challengers just a split prior.
Furthermore, their fairytale didn’t stop there. Next season, Griffin finished both LCK splits in first at the end of the regular season. Unfortunately, they also lost both finals to SKT, although they did qualify for Worlds this time around. Griffin finished 5-8th at Worlds in what might have been their last moment of glory.
Problems with the team became public during the LCK summer split. Issues with players, management, and coaching reached their peak just a few weeks before Worlds, and the team parted ways with head coach Kim “cvMax” Dae-ho. It later turned out the parting wasn’t mutual, being the result of a disagreement between cvMax and Griffin director Cho Gyu-nam. cvMax later joined DragonX and will, if all goes according to plan, be their head coach for the 2020 season.
It is unclear whether Griffin will manage to recover from the debacle that was their second half of the season. While their roster looks solid, we can’t expect it to reach the heights that the previous one did. They lost their arguably best player in Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon, and it is still unclear who will be their support.
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