Team Impulse has finalized its League Championship Series (LCS) roster for this season, and it looks far worse than it did in 2015.
The North American organization failed to sell its LCS spot after the 2015 League of Legends season and, following a chaotic offseason with many player moves, it has now built a roster from leftover free agents, sources close to the organization tell the Daily Dot.
The only player continuing on from Team Impulse’s squad last year is Austin “Gate” Yu. He served as the team’s mid laner for part of the summer season, after previous Chinese mid laner Yu “XiaoWeiXiao” Xian was suspended (and later banned) by Riot Games on July 22.
For the 2016 season Yu will move to the team’s support role. This is not the first time he’s played the position, substituting for Impulse’s former support Adrian “Adrian” Ma on July 18. He performed adequately in the role before returning to the mid lane due to Yu Xian’s suspension.
Joining Gate in the bottom lane will be former Team Coast AD carry Brandon “DontMashMe” Phan, who left Coast after its LCS spot was purchased by NRG Esports.
The rest of Team Impulse’s new roster have never played in the LCS.
In its jungle, the team has signed former DetonatioN FocusMe jungler Kim “Procxin” Se-Young. While FocusMe’s home region is in Japan, Procxin is originally from Korea. He left FocusMe in July and hasn’t played competitively since.
Backing up Procxin as a substitute will be former Team Liquid Academy and Also Known As jungler Meng “beibei” Zhang.
For its top and mid lanes Impulse has picked up two solo queue stars from different regions. Not much is known about either player at the moment, aside from their solo queue records and their involvement in the team.
Its top laner is known as Feng, a North American top lane player previously called windking66. He is currently rank 119 on the North American Challenger ladder.
Korean solo queue star Pirean will be Team Impulse’s new mid laner. He is currently rank 64 on the Korean Challenger ladder, with the most play time on mid lane champions Twisted Fate, Kassadin, Azir, and Viktor.
Impulse is also looking for support staff, and has struggled to find a coach. The team was originally planning to work with former Alliance and Gambit Gaming coach Jordan “Leviathan” Thwaites. However, according to sources close to the coach and team, the organization and Thwaites have parted ways privately.
Team Impulse’s problems initially began after failing to qualify for the 2015 World Championship, its roster then split up. Top laner Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong took a deal with NRG Esports, jungler Lee “Rush” Yoon-jae joined Cloud9, AD carry Apollo “Apollo” Price went to Team Dignitas, and support Adrian “Adrian” Ma ended up with newcomer Immortals.
As a result of the team disbanding the organization and manager Alex Gu looked to sell the spot beginning on Sep. 14, as reported by the Daily Dot. Gu later confirmed these plans on Oct. 22 in an interview with Gamespot’s Travis Gafford.
While sources say there were buyers interested in purchasing the spot, the organization decided against it and has signed a team agreement with Riot Games for 2016. That means it will keep its spot, and will continue to compete under the Team Impulse name and brand.
The 2016 season begins in only 13 days, and things look rough for the new Team Impulse. Other teams have made significantly better pickups during this offseason—specifically Cloud9, Team SoloMid, NRG Esports, Immortals, and Renegades. And even rosters who have made questionable changes—the likes of Counter Logic Gaming, Team Dignitas, and Team Liquid—look much better by comparison.
Photo via Riot Games/Flickr
