KT Rolster signs Mata, completing 2017 super team

KT Rolster has finished forming its Voltron of a League of Legends roster for the 2017 season, signing former world champion support Se-hyeong “Mata” Cho, the team announced in a press release Monday. Mata joins fellow recent signings Hyuk-kyu “Deft” Kim, Kyung-ho “Smeb” Song and Won-seok “PawN” Heo to create one of the most talented rosters in League history.

The 22-year-old Mata was teammates with mid laner PawN on the 2014 Samsung White team that won the Season 4 World Championship, and the star support player earned MVP honors for his performance in that tournament. Like PawN and AD Carry Deft, who put on a star performance for Samsung Blue that year, Mata left the LCK for China as a part of the “Korean Exodus” following the 2014 season. Mata won one LPL title while with Royal Never Give Up, while PawN and Deft won two LPL titles with EDward Gaming.

Despite all of EDG and RNG’s success domestically, the two Chinese powers could only muster one international title with all that talent: the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational, where PawN, Deft and the rest of EDG became the only team to knock SKT out of a major international tournament.

They’ll be joined by former ROX Tigers top laner Smeb, who many consider to be the second-best player in the world, and returning KT Rolster jungler Dong-bin “Score” Go. Score was the star of last year’s KT Rolster team, which finished in either second or third place in all LCK competitions (Spring Season, Spring Playoffs, Summer Season, Summer Playoffs, Regional Finals) but still managed to miss out on a spot at Worlds.

The 2017 LCK season is gearing up to be a classic, with KT Rolster’s super team going up against SKT’s. The two-time defending world champions re-signed Faker and brought on former ROX Tigers jungler Wang-ho “Peanut” Han and former Fnatic/Immortals top laner Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo. Meanwhile, defending Worlds runners-up Samsung Galaxy has retained its starting roster and Longzhu Gaming has made a splash with some big signings as well.

KT Rolster is one of the oldest gaming organizations in South Korea, but has made only one appearance at worlds — 2015, which finished in a 3-1 quarterfinal defeat to the KOO Tigers. KT just barely missed Worlds this season despite finishing third in the Spring Playoffs and runners-up in Summer, thanks to an upset victory by eventual World finalists Samsung Galaxy in the Regional Finals.Two years later, all three players return as teammates on KT Rolster.