After a tough 2020 LCS Summer Split, Cloud9 is letting go of the team’s longtime League of Legends head coach, Bok “Reapered” Han-gyu, the organization announced today.
The 28-year-old joined C9 in 2016. He helped guide C9’s various rosters through multiple ups and downs, including a handful of great performances at the World Championship. The team qualified for the knockout stage of the tournament three years in a row from 2016 to 2018.
In his greatest endeavor, he and the 2020 roster won C9’s first LCS championship since 2014. They also had one of the most dominant splits in North American history, having only lost one game in the 2020 spring regular season and one game in the playoffs.
But their success came to a sudden and unexpected halt in the 2020 LCS Summer Split. C9 started off on a good note, going undefeated through the first four weeks of play. Many people expect them to dominate the league once again, but they began to struggle in the last few weeks of the season.
Two huge series losses against FlyQuest and TSM sealed their fate and their Worlds hopes—and many pundits began to search for an explanation for their quick fall from grace. Fans and analysts, for example, were quick to blame the team’s ability to adapt to the current meta. It felt like the team wasn’t able to play certain champions that were essential to any composition in the current meta.
After failing to keep up, C9 eventually fell down to Earth and is now preparing for next year. The team already announced that it’s keeping its talented roster together for 2021. But C9 now needs to find a new head coach to lead its troops into battle next season.
Reapered was such an integral part of the team, from developing their young prospects to helping create winning strategies. It isn’t a shock that many League fans are stunned by this decision.
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