SKT signs Huni, completing 2017 roster

Two-time defending League of Legends world champions SK Telecom T1 has signed former Fnatic and Immortals top laner Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo, the team announced Thursday.

The 18-year-old burst onto the professional scene with Fnatic as part of the team that went 18-0 in the 2015 Summer Split. Along with jungler and close friend Yeu-jin “Reignover” Kim, Huni and Fnatic made it all the way to the Worlds semifinals in Season 5 before falling to SKT.

Huni and Reignover both left Europe following the 2015 season, joining Immortals, a new organization in North America. Immortals went 17-1 in the Spring regular season before settling for third place in the playoffs, and a 16-2 Summer regular season once again netted a third place finish when all was said and done. Despite having the best regular season record over the course of the 2015 season, Immortals missed Worlds, and the roster has since disbanded.

Despite Huni’s past success, this is a surprising move for SKT. Immortals’ failures down the stretch of both splits were in no small part due to his inconsistent play in the top lane, and with many former LCK top laners on the market, many experts had pointed to the likes of Chan-ho “Ssumday” Kim or Ik-soo “Ikssu” Jeon as possible targets.

But instead, SKT has chosen Huni, who will now join a roster that includes new jungler Wang-ho “Peanut” Han and, of course, the recently re-signed Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee, the best player in the world. The 2017 LCK season is going to be a blast.

Update, 3/16: The Huni experiment has gone quite well for SKT, who sit atop the LCK standings with a 12-1 record. Super team KT Rolster is pretty far behind at 10-4, and Huni has been a big part of SKT’s success: he leads all LCK top laners in KDA, assists, CS per minute, damage per minute, damage share and earned gold per minute. He’s also been quite proficient at tanks, with a 5-1 record on Maokai, 2-0 on Poppy and 1-1 on Nautilus.