As the clock struck 12 on November 17, the 2020 League of Legends free agency period kicked off, with a flurry of reported chopping and changing taking place within its first few hours.
The evening’s proceedings were opened up by esports journalist Jacob Wolf’s free agency show. Now produced in-tandem with North American gaming organisation Evil Geniuses, the show dropped a number of rather tantalising reports which, if true, show near-seismic activity currently occurring throughout the LoL sphere.
There have also been a number of roster change confirmations already. LEC outfit Rogue announced the signing of Andrei ‘Odoamne’ Pascu as its starting toplaner, with Adrian ‘Trymbi’ Trybus being promoted to support from its academy team. This currently leaves both Finn ‘Finn’ Wiestål and Oskar ‘Vander’ Bogdan without a team, though previous reports have stated that they may find new homes in the LCS’ Counter Logic Gaming and the LEC’s Misfits Gaming respectively.
In the LCS, team 100 Thieves secured first blood in the market, confirming the signings of jungler Can ‘Closer’ Çelik and botlaner Ian ‘FBI’ Huang. Both Closer and FBI had been released by Golden Guardians alongside the rest of its roster, leaving the futures of Tanner ‘Damonte’ Damonte, Choi ‘huhi’ Jae-hyun, and Kevin ‘Hauntzer’ Yarnell unclear.
Perhaps the biggest shock of the night came in the form of reports that Fnatic botlaner Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson is exploring his own free agency options. Rekkles has enjoyed a long and illustrious career with the British-based organisation, only briefly switching to Alliance (and then Elements) for the 2014 Summer and 2015 Spring Splits. Rumours surrounding Rekkles’ future have been circulating since it was reported rival G2 Esports botlaner Luka ‘Perkz’ Perković was on the move, with the Swede touted to replace him.
Below we have summarised all of the latest rumblings from the free agency period so far.
League of legends free agency roster rumours and changes
LEC – Confirmed
- Andrei ‘Odoamne’ Pascu from FC Schalke 04 to Rogue
- Adrian ‘Trymbi’ Trybus from AGO ROGUE to Rogue
LEC – reported/rumoured
- Nikolay ‘Zanzarah’ Akatov from AGO ROGUE to Astralis
- Paweł ‘Czekolad’ Szczepanik from AGO ROGUE to Excel Esports
- Segen ‘Broken Blade’ Çelik from Team SoloMid to FC Schalke 04
- Dino ‘LIMIT’ Tot from SK Gaming to FC Schalke 04
- Elisa ‘Upset’ Lipp, Juš ‘Crownshot’ Marušič, or Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson to G2 Esports
- Erik ‘Treatz’ Wessén from Team SoloMid to SK Gaming
- Mathias ‘Syzgenda’ Jensen from AGO ROGUE to Team Vitality
LCS – Confirmed
- Can ‘Closer’ Çelik from Golden Guardians to 100 Thieves
- Ian ‘FBI’ Huang from Golden Guardians to 100 Thieves
lcs – reported/rumoured
- Choi ‘huhi’ Jae-hyun from Golden Guardians to 100 Thieves
- Mads ‘Broxah’ Brock-Pederson from Team Liquid to Counter Logic Gaming
- Lee ‘IgNar’ Dong-geun from FlyQuest to Evil Geniuses
- Jung ‘Impact’ Eon-yeong from Team Liquid to Evil Geniuses
- Lawrence ‘Lost’ Hui from Team SoloMid Academy to Evil Geniuses
- Eric ‘Licorice’ Ritchie from Cloud9 to FlyQuest
- Brandon ‘Josedeodo’ Vellegas from Rainbow7 to FlyQuest
- Cristian ‘Palafox’ Palafox from Cloud9 Academy to FlyQuest
- Matthew ‘Deftly’ Chen from Evil Geniuses Academy to FlyQuest
- David ‘Diamond’ Bérubé from Cloud9 Academy to FlyQuest
- Mohamed ‘Revenge’ Kaddoura from FlyQuest Academy to Immortals
- Heo ‘Huni’ Seung-hoon from Evil Geniuses to Team SoloMid
- Hu ‘SwordArt’ Shuo-Chieh from Suning to Team SoloMid
Europe and North America aren’t the only regions potentially facing huge changes, either. Alongside SwordArt’s reported move to the LCS from LPL side Suning, FunPlus Phoenix’s Kim ‘Khan’ Dong-Ha and Kim ‘GimGoon’ Han-saem have both reportedly entered free agency.
Meanwhile, in Korea, World Champions DAMWON Gaming may be set to lose jungler Jang ‘Nuguri’ Ha-gwon and Cho ‘BeryL’ Geon-hee as both players also come to the end of their contracts. With Worlds quarter-finalists DRX also announcing that it is parting ways with most of its roster, the offseason is set to be an absolute banger.
