After the 2022 LCK Spring Finals came to its conclusion, LCK officially entered its off-season. With it, there’s been quite a bit of news that kept the fans engaged in discussion. From news that the community’s been actively talking about to those that you may have missed completely, Inven Global is here to shed light on some of those topics to our readers. 

Faker's offer from the LPL 

In a recent podcast with Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, the CEO of T1 Joe Marsh revealed how much their franchise star, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok was offered from China during the off-season last year. He revealed that Faker was offered a base yearly salary of 20 million dollars from the LPL. If you do the math, that’s roughly 1,635,864.80 USD per month, 49,075.94 USD per day, and 2,126.62 USD per hour.

Joe Marsh revealed that this was the first off-season where he felt there was a real chance that Faker may not re-sign with T1. However, he further revealed that the reason Faker decided to re-sign was because “It’s about where he can compete the most and win.”

The confidence of T1 Gumayusi

In the same podcast, Doublelift also talked about returning to pro play, and stated that there’s a “99% chance that [he’ll] never return to pro play”. The reason being is because the current bot laner for T1, Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong, was the first player where he felt, “I don’t know if I can beat this guy… Even when I watched ‘Uzi’ in his prime, I felt, ‘I think I can beat this guy’. Guma… I don’t think that guy’s human”.

Joe Marsh chimed in to share a story about why Gumayusi decided to stay at T1. Back when he was 17 and on T1’s secondary team, Gumayusi would tell the higher-ups that he felt he was better than their starting bot laner at the time, Park “Teddy” Jin-seong, and that he should be the starting bot laner for the team. The reason why he decided to extend his contract this year with T1 was so that he could “Prove that they’ve made a mistake of not starting him two years ago.” 

Nuguri returns to the LCK for the Summer split?

It’s been reported by multiple media outlets that top laner Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon, will be returning to the LCK after a short sabbatical from professional League of Legends. The reports state that he will be returning to his former team, DWG KIA, and join his former teammates Heo “ShowMaker” Su and Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu.

His last tenure in professional LoL was with FunPlus Phoenix in the LPL. After FPX failed to make it out of groups at Worlds in 2021 and he became a free agent, he decided to take a sabbatical, with his return unknown at the time. Regarding Nuguri’s return, no official comments have been made from DWG KIA.

KIM vs DRX 

On Apr 11, The Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission ruled in favor of former head coach Kim "KIM" Jeong-soo, stating that his firing from DRX was an unfair dismissal. The initial ruling is that coach KIM is to be reinstated immediately, and be paid for the time he was absent from the team.

KIM was fired from DRX after just three matches in the 2022 LCK Spring split. KIM's agency, Shadow Corporation said, "It wasn't KIM's intent to be removed from the roster. The organization unilaterally notified KIM that he was removed. We're currently trying to find out the process." Since then, KIM’s been involved in a legal dispute with DRX, and while the ruling isn’t final, KIM’s lawyers stated they “Expect that there's a 90% chance that this ruling won't be overturned in the final verdict."

However, with DRX acquiring head coach Kim “Ssong” Sang-soo as KIM’s replacement on Feb 14, it remains unclear on whether or not KIM will be able to return to the team.