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HANJIN BRION have a new midlaner. The Korean team announced on Friday, February 27, 2026, that it has signed Loki, who comes back to Korea after one year with Cloud9 in North America, Sheep Esports reported the same day. The contract covers the rest of the 2026 season and the whole of 2027.
The midlaner plays the central lane of the map, the shortest route between the two bases, and is usually expected to help the other lanes as much as his own. Loki takes the place of Roamer, who held the role for HANJIN BRION during the LCK Cup, the competition that opens the Korean season.
No fee and no other term of the deal has been published. Loki is 21 and, by Sheep Esports' count, starts his fifth year as a professional player. He has never played a match in the LCK, Korea's top league.
Sheep Esports, February 27, 2026.
A Korean midlaner shaped in North America
Loki is a product of the Korean academy system. Academy teams are the second rosters that the big clubs run to train young players, and they play in their own competitions below the main league. Loki joined Hanwha Life Esports in 2022 and played in the LCK Academy Series, according to Sheep Esports. He then spent two years in LCK Challengers, the second division of Korean League of Legends, where the clubs' reserve teams meet.
In 2025 he left Korea for Cloud9 in North America. Sheep Esports traces his year there split by split. In the first split, the opening part of the season, Cloud9 finished in the top three or four. In the second split they reached the final, a run that qualified the team for the Esports World Cup. In the summer split they finished just off the podium.
Related readNinjas in Pyjamas sign stavn as primary AWPer after benching r1nkleThat year also included one unusual appearance. Under a Wildcard rule of the NLC, a regional league, Loki played one game for Bulldog Esports, and won it on Taliyah, one of the game's champions. A champion is the character a player controls in a game, chosen in a draft before each game starts.
With HANJIN BRION, the player who came through the Hanwha Life Esports academy and two years of LCK Challengers now has a place in a team of the LCK itself.
Replacing Roamer in a rebuilt team
The signing changes one name in a roster that was already almost entirely new. In January, Sheep Esports described HANJIN BRION, formerly known as OKSavingsBank BRION, as the only one of the ten LCK teams to have rebuilt its whole roster for the 2026 season. Its 2025 toplaner had joined Team Liquid in the LCS, the North American league, and another player of the 2025 team had moved to DN SOOPers.
The team entered the year with two midlaners on its books. Fisher had shared a few games with the jungler GIDEON at Nongshim RedForce. Roamer came back to Korea after two years with Team Liquid Challengers and paiN Gaming, and he was the one who played the LCK Cup. Loki now replaces him in the starting five.
Here is the roster as Sheep Esports lists it after the signing, with what its earlier reports say about each starter.
| Role | Player | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Top | Casting | From KT Rolster Challengers, two split titles in 2024. |
| Jungle | GIDEON | Back after a year at Nongshim RedForce. |
| Mid | Loki | Signed February 27 from Cloud9. |
| AD carry | Teddy | Veteran, 27, added for 2026. |
| Support | Namgung | From Gen.G's academy teams, aged 22. |
Sheep Esports, January 22 and February 27, 2026. Ages as published in January.
Each of the five has a story that the January report spells out. Casting, the top laner, won two splits with KT Rolster Challengers in 2024 and the Asia Star Challengers Invitational the same year. In 2025 he stood in for KT Rolster in some LCK series, but the team did not keep him. GIDEON, the jungler, who roams between the lanes, was already the team's jungler in the spring of 2024 and returns after a mixed year at Nongshim RedForce. Sheep Esports noted that he had never played in a playoff in his career.
Related readNRG Sign Sweetdreams and His SSS Trio Before the ALGS Split 2 PlayoffsTeddy, the AD carry, the player who deals most of the team's sustained damage late in a game, is the veteran of the group. Sheep Esports wrote in January that he would probably leave for military service after 2026. Namgung, the support, who protects the AD carry and controls vision on the map, spent his whole career in Gen.G's academy teams before this season and is making his debut in the LCK.
A staff with two world titles
The players are new; the staff brings experience at the top. The head coach is Ssong, 36, who left DRX after one year. He won the 2022 World Championship with DRX, and he was an assistant coach when the ROX Tigers won the LCK in 2016.
His assistant is Duke, who won the 2018 World Championship as top laner with Invictus Gaming. Duke is not new to the club: he was BRION's head coach during the summer of 2025, and Sheep Esports describes him as at the start of his coaching career.
The two coaches now have a midlaner who has played a full season as a starter in another region. Loki's contract, running to the end of 2027, gives the staff two seasons to work with him.
An LCK Cup without a series win
The signing follows a difficult start. Sheep Esports ranked the team tenth, last of the league, in its power rankings before the LCK Cup, and the results followed.
The LCK Cup is played by the ten LCK teams in three parts. In January, Sheep Esports set out how it works.
Related readOG rebuild their Dota 2 roster around Topson, SSS and OneJey- Group battleTen teams in two groups of five, each team playing every team of the other group once. The group with the most points becomes the Winners Group.
- Play-In, February 6 to 8The bottom three of the Winners Group and the second to fourth of the Losers Group play for the last playoff places.
- Playoffs, from February 12The top two of the Winners Group and the winner of the Losers Group are joined by the Play-In qualifiers. The final is on March 1.
HANJIN BRION were drawn in Group Baron with Gen.G, T1, Nongshim RedForce and DN SOOPers. The other group, Group Elder, held Hanwha Life Esports, Dplus KIA, KT Rolster, BNK FearX and DRX. The team opened its season against Dplus KIA on January 14 and lost its first matches to Dplus KIA, BNK FearX and Hanwha Life Esports.
By the end of the group battle it had lost every one of its five series: four best-of-three, where the first team to win two games takes the series, and one best-of-five, according to Sheep Esports. Even so, it went through. Group Baron collected more points than Group Elder, so its bottom teams still reached the Play-In, while Hanwha Life Esports, last of Group Elder with two wins, were eliminated. HANJIN BRION's cup then ended in an elimination series in the Play-In, lost 2-1 to DRX.
What the cup decides, and what it does not
The LCK Cup has a prize of its own: its winner and its runner-up qualify for First Stand, the first international tournament of the year. In 2025 only one Korean team went, Hanwha Life Esports, who beat Gen.G in that year's final. The 2026 final is on Sunday, March 1, two days after the signing.
The cup does not count toward the league title. Sheep Esports stresses that it has no impact on the LCK season itself, and that only the playoffs at the end of the year crown the Korean champion. For a team that won no series in January and February, that leaves the whole league season still to play.
Related readPARIVISION sign HObbit and slaxejezzz after their 0-3 Cologne exitIn 2025, the season that followed the cup was built in stages, as Sheep Esports described the format in October 2024. Rounds 1 and 2 were a double round robin, each team meeting every other team twice in best-of-three series, with the top six going on to a Road to MSI stage for the places at the Mid-Season Invitational. Rounds 3 to 5 then split the ten teams into a Legend Group of the top five and a Rise Group of the bottom five, each playing a triple round robin. The fifth team of the Legend Group and the top three of the Rise Group played for the last playoff places, and the double-elimination playoffs, all in best-of-five series, decided the champion and the teams for the World Championship.
What the contract covers
The deal is short on public detail but clear on its length. HANJIN BRION signed Loki for what is left of 2026 and for the full 2027 season, Sheep Esports reported, with no fee mentioned. Neither club has published a transfer fee or the terms of Loki's exit from Cloud9.
For Cloud9, the move closes a one-year chapter with a midlaner who took them to a split final and to the Esports World Cup. The club continues in the LCS in 2026: on January 20 it announced the renewal of a sponsorship deal running through the 2027 LCS season.
For HANJIN BRION, Loki becomes the third midlaner of a season that is not yet two months old, after Fisher and Roamer. He arrives with a full year as a starter in North America behind him, a run to a split final and a qualification for the Esports World Cup.
The next date on the Korean calendar is the LCK Cup final on March 1. The league season follows, and with it Loki's first match in the LCK.
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