- The League of Legends off-season has started and organizations are restructuring again
- DWA announced it is parting ways with its two top laners
- It’s currently unknown what other organizations have expressed interest in the players
Korean esports organization DWG KIA now remains without top laners as it announced it’s parting ways with Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon and Noh “Burdol” Tae-yoon.
Nuguri and Burdol Leave DWG
The months between competitive League of Legends seasons are the time for change and restructuring. This may include things like Riot ending a 12-year-long contract with Garena in order to self-publish LoL and TFT in Southeast Asia but it also means esports organizations are restructuring.
The latter often means changing the composition of their teams, and Korean organization DWG KIA is no exception to that, as it announced its parting ways with top laners Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon and Noh “Burdol” Tae-yoon. The two players have been released as free agents and will be looking for a new organization for the 2023 competitive season.
For Nuguri this is the second time he has left the team. He left the team in favor of playing for FPX during the 2021 competitive season, but not before helping DWA achieve its first-ever World Championship in 2019. His time in FPX didn’t really parallel the experience he had in DWA. The team finished second in 2021’s Spring and Summer, but had a terrible experience at Worlds, exiting in groups. It later collapsed, which led to Nuguri being picked up again by DWA in April this year.
During this year he shared the top laner position with Burdol. Nuguri was DWA’s preferred player, being the starting top laner, but Burdol still participated in various crucial matches. These include LCK Summer Playoffs against T1 and the Regional Finals versus Liiv SANDBOX.
At just 18 years of age, Burdol is the younger and far less experienced player among the two. Despite that, he has already been part of other big esports organizations, having started his career in T1’s academy teams in 2019. Later, Burdol became a substitute top laner for Gen.G in the 2021 season, where he got the chance to play at the World Championship. DWA picked him up at the end of the season and he played the majority of the Spring Split before Nuguri’s return to the team.
It's still unknown what the players’ current plans are or if any organizations have expressed interest in acquiring them. Whatever the case, Nuguri and Burdol will be able to join new teams after the free agency period kicks off on November 21.
