DAMWON Gaming renew the contracts of young stars Canyon and ShowMaker
DAMWON Gaming has managed to hold onto two of its stars as jungler Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu and mid-laner Heo “ShowMaker” Su have extended their contracts until 2021 with the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) side.
The rest of the starting line-up, bot-lane duo Sin “Nuclear” Jeong-hyeon and Cho "BeryL" Geon-hee as well as superstar top-laner Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon, are all rumoured to be staying as well with all three contracted until November 2020.
Though DAMWON hasn’t held onto everyone as head coach Kim Jeong-soo has left for T1 (formerly SK Telecom T1) to replace legendary coach Kim "kkOma" Jeong-gyun who has left the organisation after seven years to reportedly join Vici Gaming in China. Experienced top-laner Lee "Flame" Ho-jong, formerly of Longzhu Gaming, Immortals and FlyQuest, has also left the organisation in the search of regular play-time having spent most of the year as a substitute.
The past season was an extremely successful one for DAMWON, especially considering it was the organisation’s first in the professional scene. The young squad attended Rift Rivals and went onto have a very convincing run at the 2019 LoL World Championships as they made it through the Play-Ins, topped their group which included former World Champion Invictus Gaming and reigning LCS champions Team Liquid, before they were knocked out in the quarter-finals by eventual finalists G2 Esports. G2 had admitted to being slightly nervous before the series as DAMWON had annihilated them in scrims. Many were confused as to why had Fnatic scrimmed a then-unknown DWG during their Worlds 2018 run but it’s now very clear to see why.
It was at Worlds that DAMWON’s young guns really got to prove their skills as ShowMaker was particularly impressive as one of the strongest mid-laners in the world despite being just 19-years-old. Canyon is even younger at just 18 years of age but he also impressed throughout the tournament.
It’s frightening just how impressive the young squad was within their first year and it will be exciting to see how they fair in the next season of the LCK where most rosters have undergone a lot of change. While they performed well internationally, the organisation will be hoping to really challenge domestically and compete with T1 for the LCK title.
Image Credit - Riot Games
