by Seoul-based Hanwha Life Esports revealed on Friday that they had signed two League of Legends world champions — mid laner Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo and top laner Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon — in preparation for the 2023 LoL Champions Korea (LCK) season.
HLE have been on a spree of signing star players. On Tuesday, the League of Legends team also entered into a contract with 2021 world champion ADC Park “Viper” Do-hyeon from EDward Gaming.
Both Zeka and Kingen were key figures in DRX’s success at the 2022 LoL World Championship. The team defeated T1 by a 3-2 score in a tit-for-tat finals series to clinch the title.
Hanwha Life appear to have hit the jackpot with Kingen. The 22-year-old top laner is widely regarded as one of the most valuable players in the LCK region, and he was recently named the MVP at the 2022 Worlds finals. He was also part of the KT Rolster team that won the 2018 LCK Summer title.
Zeka, on the other hand, is a 20-year-old Korean player who has also dominated the LCK scene over the past year. He launched his pro career in 2019 with the Chinese team Vici Gaming and moved to Bilibili Gaming in 2020, before joining DRX at the end of the 2021 campaign.
At the time of writing, Hanwha Life still had jungler and support spots to fill. There has been speculation that the team is already in negotiations with former KT Rolster support Kim “Life” Jeong-min and former FunPlus Phoenix jungler Kim “Clid” Tae-min.
