The League of Legends team for Counter Logic Gaming quickly rose to the top of the North American professional scene before the company was acquired by NRG Esports last month.
But now that the roster is under a different banner, the new management is ready to make a splash this coming 2023 LCS Summer Split by picking up two of the biggest free agents on the market this mid-season break. Victor “FBI” Huang and Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun have jumped on board as the new bottom lane duo for the roster, adding some much-needed firepower to this promising roster.
As the former AD carry for 100 Thieves and Evil Geniuses, FBI has been a consistent DPS threat ever since he joined the LCS back in 2019 with Golden Guardians. Since then, he has been an important member of various winning rosters, including the Thieves’ championship run in 2021.
The 24-year-old veteran has plenty of experience on the big stage and should give NRG an X-factor to rely on when the game hits the later stages of a match.
IgNar, on the other hand, is also a veteran support who has played for multiple teams and regions, like Europe’s Misfits Gaming and Schalke 04 and Korea’s KT Rolster, but he has spent the most time in NA with orgs like FlyQuest, Immortals, Dignitas, and Evil Geniuses.
He has effectively become a journeyman with experience on top rosters along with bottom-level teams, but with the right teammates, the 26-year-old can still perform at a high level. With players like Contractz, Palafox, and Dhokla, IgNar can play relatively aggressively on heavy engage champions like Alistar, Thresh, Rakan, and Nautilus, which is a playstyle he has excelled with in the past.
Ultimately, this roster looks good enough to crack the top five of the LCS regular season standings, but they’ll need to work on building better chemistry through the first few weeks of the split. The 2023 Spring Split CLG roster meshed together really well on and off the Summoner’s Rift, so FBI and IgNar will have to find some level of connection with the rest of the team if they wish to pull off a deep run into the postseason.