DWG KIA replace RyZzi and Hate with Chibab and Kelly

Ahead of VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - Korea - Challengers 2 in Korea, Dplus have made some changes to their roster. Out are Omen player Jung "RyZzi" Ki-jin as well as sentinel and occasional duelist Lee "HATE" Ye-hun. In their place, Kim "Chibab" Young-hyun and Lee "Kelly" Tae-hyung have joined the team.

The move is somewhat of a puzzling one given the team’s performance in VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - Korea - Challengers 1. They were clearly one of the event’s best teams, not losing a map and securing themselves the ₩4,000,000 prize for topping their group, as well as that Challengers 2 bye. The two players placed 11th and 13th event-wide in Rating, with Hate also placing fourth in Headshot Percentage. Perhaps there were internal issues, perhaps it was something else entirely. But it’s hard to find a performance-related reason for the players to have been kicked. Furthermore, Hate posted LFT on his twitter, implying the players haven’t been acquired by another organization.

The players coming in to replace them do have plenty of experience, however. Kelly was part of the first iteration of Lunatic-hai’s roster, who were a threat in the early days of VALORANT in the scene, and Chibab played with the original aNg DarkHorse team, though he wasn’t around for their semifinal First Strike run.

Whether a good move or not, we’ll get to see the results in not too long. Challengers 2 kicks off next week in Korea, on Thursday February 18th.

DWG KIA are now:

Kim “Secret” Ha-jin Kim “Eugene” Su-yeong Kim “t3xture” Na-ra Kim “Chibab” Young-hyun Lee “Kelly” Tae-hyung