Top lane substitute for NaJin White Shield, Shin "Seraph" Woo Yeong, will be flying to the Counter Logic Gaming house to try out for the team.
Since the previous top laner of CLG, Zach "Nien" Malhas, retired, the community has been buzzing about who might replace him. The team's coach, Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, has done his part to increase the hype by leaving clues along the way, including tweets that confirmed CLG would be looking for top laners in North America, Europe, and Korea. Later, in Summoning Insight with Thooorin, he specified that one Korean top laner in particular is very interested in making the move to North America.
The finish of EU relegations is good. Waiting for NA and still scouting Korea.
— MonteCristo (@ggCMonteCristo) April 27, 2014
Rumors of who this player could be included MakNooN, LongPanda, TrAce, and Seraph, primarily. When asked about Seraph specifically on stream, CLG's AD carry, Peter "Doublelift" Peng, awkwardly made jokes in response, sparking suspicion.
As a result, it surprised few when onGamers published the official announcement that Seraph would be flying out to the CLG house to try out for the team. According the article, Seraph was in competition with another NA top laner whose price was too steep and ZoroZero, who declined the offer, leaving Seraph as the primary front-runner. MonteCristo tested him on game knowledge and play, as well as English for the sake of communicating with the team.
Upon completing these tests, Seraph must test synergy with the rest of the team. CLG has experimented with many different top laners, including Joedat "Voyboy" Esfahani when he was widely regarded as the best top laner in North America, only to struggle because of lack of team synergy. As Seraph's style differs greatly from Nien's, it's important to ensure the team can succeed in scrims before CLG signs him.
Seraph has played one game in OGN Champions recently, the tie-breaker match of Group C between NaJin White Shield and Samsung Galaxy Ozone for Champions Winter 2013, where he played top lane Shyvana.