After a difficult season in the LCS which ended in their relegation, TDK rebrands itself as Team Arena Online (TAO).
Photo By: NA LoL eSports
Following their inaugural NA LCS split, Team Dragon Knights was automatically relegated due to them finishing in last place largely because of visa delays involving three of their members.
TDK began the summer split losing their first nine games, showing little promise. Furthermore, they were stuck at the bottom of the standings, putting them in position to be relegated back to the North American League of Legends Challenger Series. After their visa issues were fixed and all the starting players were available to play, they gained a little momentum and performed much more admirably. However, this came too late as there was too large of a gap for them to realistically stay in the league.
Now that TDK is back to the Challenger Series they hope to repeat the same success they had a year ago to get back into the LCS this time as Team Arena Online (TAO).
Founder of Arena Online, Alan Hubbard, told the Daily Dot in an interview that he “wants to give this impressive team the support they need to get back on track” and that their season was ruined due to “ridiculous pitfalls”. Hubbard seems extremely confident in his newly acquired team and thinks that they will be able to win the Challenger Series to return to the LCS.
Top laner Shin “Seraph” Woo-yeng, jungler Kevin “Kez” Jeon, and mid laner Noh “Ninja” Geon-woo will remain with the team. The future of ADC Kim “Emperor” Jin-Hyun is currently up in the air and support Andy “Smoothie” Ta, has been rumored to join Team Liquid. Although it looks like the roster will be overhauled, TDK often played top-centric strategies. Seraph is also considered the heart of the team since he’s been present since the beginning. The returning players will have to step up their play. The organization will have to find adequate players to replace the outgoing ones in order to reach their ultimate goal.
The change to Arena Online looks to be one that will benefit the team as the organization has a player first mentality and hopes to grow in order to change the world of eSports.
