Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon has been the center of the League of Legends spotlight today. First, SK Telecom T1 announced that he was leaving the team to pursue other options. Now, he might be returning to North America to compete for Echo Fox in the newly-franchised NA LCS, according to a report from ESPN.
If the negotiations succeed, and Huni plays for Echo Fox, he’ll be among three other new players on the roster—Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, Adrian Ma, and Johnny “Altec” Ru.
Dardoch’s contract with Team Liquid isn’t set to expire until 2019, but Echo Fox is working on a buyout deal to acquire him for the 2018 season. Team Liquid recently confirmed that Jake “Xmithie” Puchero will be their starting jungler, meaning Dardoch would either be a substitute or share the role if he remained on the team. Therefore, a trade or buyout for Dardoch seemed imminent.
Dardoch and Xmithie were both involved in some drama at the start of the split, where Dardoch was traded to CLG from Immortals for Xmithie, despite Xmithie having been on CLG for three years. Dardoch was then released from CLG due to unwillingness “to adhere to the set of standards expected of every member of the team,” before rejoining Team Liquid, where he made his NA LCS debut in 2016.
Adrian and Altec are being picked up out of free agency, as their contracts for Team Dignitas expired with Dignitas’ departure from the NA LCS.
The last time Huni was in the NA LCS, he played for Immortals and led them to win their first split title in the spring of 2016. If the deal for Huni goes through, he’ll have to work hard to help Echo Fox avoid a bottom three finish for the fourth split in a row.
