LPL recruits a championship-winning coach who once fiercely competed against Faker but was later dropped by T1, with his coaching skills under scrutiny.

Hello to all LPL viewers and League of Legends summoners, this is Tianxia Game Report.

The transfer window for the LPL has seen most teams lock in their rosters for the upcoming season, but coaching roles still hold some mystery. Today, Korean media announced that GEN’s Coach Kim is set to move to China.

Editor

This coach is most likely to sign with the WBG team.

LPL brings in a championship coach, with WBG as the favorite destination.

Yesterday, Korean media outlet OSEN reported that Coach Kim will sign a one-year contract with an LPL team. Although Kim initially wanted to take a break, persistent invitations from the LPL led him to accept coaching again. Netizens speculate that the team in question is WBG.

The reason is straightforward: most top LPL teams have already confirmed their coaches. Among the potential dark horse teams, JDG’s coach is Tabe, leaving only WBG’s coach position undecided.

WBG’s roster for the new season will include Zika, Jiejie, Xiaohu, Elk, and Erha. Honestly, the lineup looks quite promising and much improved compared to this year. With a good coach, they could achieve solid results, which is why WBG has been actively courting Kim to take the helm.

However, the key issue is that this coach is not widely accepted by the audience. He is best known for leading IG to the World Championship in Season 8. Since then, he has moved through several teams and achieved decent results with GEN, but his draft pick (BP) strategies have repeatedly been questioned by fans, who doubt his coaching excellence.

Once fiercely competed against Faker but was later dropped by T1

This year, GEN lost several matches, and in most of those defeats, viewers criticized Kim’s BP decisions, believing they had major flaws. Even in many of GEN’s wins, the team compositions were often criticized, with comments suggesting that the players’ individual skills were the main reason for victory rather than the draft choices.

Another controversial point about this coach was during his time at T1, where he strongly competed against Faker, benching him and even criticizing him multiple times in interviews.

Eventually, Faker began pushing to leave the team. T1 realized the problem, started valuing Faker’s opinions, offered him a lucrative contract, and agreed to his request to replace the coaching staff. After the coaching changes, T1 gradually improved and started performing well.

In summary, Kim’s coaching ability is not highly regarded either inside or outside the industry. Therefore, many are skeptical about Kim coaching WBG. Of course, he is still likely more skilled than many Chinese coaches. We will have to see how WBG performs under his guidance.

BLG’s new season coach is likely Daeny

Speaking of the T1 internal conflicts, another important figure is Daeny, who also coached T1 and, like Kim, had conflicts with Faker. This year, Daeny coached IG and performed quite well. Many fans tend to rate Daeny higher than Kim.

For the new season, Daeny is unlikely to remain with IG. Some fans have spotted someone resembling Daeny at BLG’s training facility, and rumors have emerged about Daeny joining BLG.

This transfer is generally well-received by fans, who believe Daeny’s skill level is definitely higher than Bigwei’s.

In my opinion, BLG’s biggest issue is their straightforward and rough playstyle, lacking strong teamfight control, and their players tend to get impatient. Daeny needs to improve the team’s coordination. Although Daeny has coached many teams before, none of them showed particularly strong teamfight control.

During T1’s three consecutive championships, they maximized this ability, and LCK coaches have found ways to counter LPL teams. Whether Daeny can enhance BLG in this regard, giving them the strength to compete with LCK, will be one of the core mysteries of the new season.