Former world champions Ambition and Crown have parted ways with Gen.G esports

Gen.G esports, who won the 2017 League of Legends World Championship, have parted ways with jungler Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong and mid laner Lee “Crown” Min-ho, the team announced on Thursday night. Both players had played with the organization since 2015 when it was known as Samsung Galaxy.

During the 2016 season, both Ambition and Crown played pivotal roles in helping Samsung to a second place finish after a hard fought 3-2 loss in the World Finals against SK Telecom T1. In the following year, Samsung returned to the World Championship Finals and once again faced off against SKT, this time earning a decisive 3-0 win and claiming the title of best team in the world.

The team’s fate took a bit of a turn in 2018 after it was purchased by the Gen.G esports organization, and it struggled to succeed throughout the year. Despite two disappointing finishes in the LCK regular season, the team finished fifth in both the spring and the summer, and Gen.G managed to put together and impressive run through the Worlds qualification gauntlet in order to return to the tournament. When the team got there, however, they put up the worst Worlds performance ever by a Korean team managing to win just one game out of the six they played during the tournament’s group stage.

Ambition played with the organization since late 2015 when he was traded from CJ Entus. One of the longest standing players in competitive League of Legends, Ambition started his career as a mid laner, but after a few years transitioned to jungle where his talent as a strategist and game planner could be better used.

During his time with the organization, Crown was often an extremely meta-dependent player. When his champions were in-style, he was easily one of the best mid laners in Korea. When they weren’t, he was a lot less effective. But, during the 2016 and 2017 seasons, Crown spent nearly the entire season as one of the world’s best mid laners helping to lead Samsung to its most impressive recent seasons.

Despite their struggle in the most recent season, both players exit the Gen.G organization having made it to Worlds in each of their three full seasons with one World Championship and a second place finished to show for it, which makes for a pretty impressive resume. There’s no word yet on if the players will seek contracts with other teams either in the LCK or around the world, but with the off-season kicking into gear, this is likely not the last we’ll hear of either of these former world champions.