Dignitas looks to shake up its roster by bringing in their second import player

Dignitas is going to use up its second and final player import slot.

Seen as one of the LCS' longest-standing organisations, things have not looked great for Dignitas over the past few years. The team ended up in last place in this season's spring split, which marks the fifth time this has happened in its storied legacy in the LCS. And having only managed just three wins and 15 losses during the spring split group stage, it appears Dignitas is looking to make even more changes before the start of the summer split.

According to Blix.gg, Dignitas has reached a verbal agreement with Lee "Rich" Jae-won, who was last with Ninjas in Pyjamas in the LPL. He will be coming in to replace Irfan "Armut" Berk Tükek. The former MAD Lions toplaner joined during the off-season last year and brings a wealth of experience from the LEC alongside two LEC and two TCL titles.

Unfortunately, it hasn't quite panned out for Dignitas and it's looking likely that Armut will be the first casualty. And with Rich coming into the fold, he will be Dignitas' second and final imported player for the roster. Alongside Rich will be fellow Korean, Lee "IgNar" Dong-Geun, who signed with Dignitas on the same day as Armut.

But who is Rich and what can his experience in both the LCK and the LPL bring?

For starters, the Korean toplaner has already been in the professional scene for a few years now. However, the way Rich got his start in pro play wasn't in the conventional sense. A former Heroes of the Storm pro, Rich was originally signed to the Gen.G Esports HotS roster where he was often compared to Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok due to the impact he brings to the game. He soon transitioned to LoL in 2019 and even got the chance to be a stand-in for Gen.G in the summer of 2019 for a few matches as a midlaner.

By the 2020 season, Rich made the move to Team Dynamics (now known as Nongshim RedForce) as well as making the top lane his residence. And despite his sheer inexperience within the professional LoL scene, Rich and his teammates were still able to qualify for the LCK at the end of the spring split that year.

And the 2021 season was when Rich started to truly shine with Nongshim RedForce, finishing in the top six and the top four of both the spring and summer splits respectively. This soon earned him a move to Victory Five in the LPL, where he started to grow from strength to strength. Rich was part of the V5 squad that even managed to finish third in the 2022 spring split.

With V5 getting acquired by NiP for the current 2023 season, Rich was soon benched for NiP's academy jungler, Xiao-Bing "Invincible" Li. Ever since then, he's only ever played one game for NiP, which was a loss to Rare Atom. On March 3, it was announced that Rich was a free agent after leaving NiP during the middle of the spring split.

His wealth of experience at the top level for both the LCK and LPL will be crucial in just how well Dignitas can perform in the summer. With there already being three Korean toplaners in the LCS, adding Rich to the mix will only increase the competitive level of the region. And if he can regain the form that brought him to the limelight in 2021, Dignitas can very well start to mount a challenge once more.