Faker and Chovy will play together in LCK 2026 Season Opening

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 05/01/2026

The League of Legends teams for the LCK 2026 Season Opening exhibition tournament have been decided by the team captains.

The for-fun esports event starts the new year by having players draft teams for each of LoL’s five positions.

Captains took it in turns drafting players of their own role, unable to repeat a team already selected within the same round.

The event will take place on January 9th, starting at 6 PM KST (9 AM BST), before the LCK Cup starts later this month.

Here are the teams selected by captains Choi ‘Zeus‘ Woo-je, Mun ‘Oner‘ Hyeon-jun, Lee ‘Faker‘ Sang-hyeok, Park ‘Ruler‘ Jae-hyuk, and Ryu ‘Keria‘ Min-seok.

Team TOP

Captain Zeus from Hanwha Life Esports (HWE) started the draft by bringing in one of the most impressive players from last season, Gen.G’s Kim ‘Kiin‘ Ki-in.

He then rounded out Team TOP with SOOPers’ Lee ‘DuDu‘ Dong-ju, T1’s Worlds 2025 winner GChoi ‘Doran‘ Hyeon-jun, and Hwang ‘Kingen‘ Seong-hoon from Nongshim RedForce.

Team JGL

This year, the jungle team was led by T1’s Oner after last year’s captain Han ‘Peanut‘ Wang-ho retired from competitive LoL.

Surprisingly, Gen.G’s former LoL Worlds winner Kim ‘Canyon’ Geon-bu missed out on selection because of the snake-format draft.

Instead, Oner drafted HWE’s new signing Seo ‘Kanavi‘ Jin-hyeok as his first pick as Gen.G had already been picked by Zeus.

DRX’s Kim ‘Willer‘ Jeong-hyeon, KT Rolster’s Mun ‘Cuzz‘ U-chan, and Hanjin BRION Kim ‘GIDEON’ Min-seong then round out the roster.

Team MID

Team MID is anything but, as legendary pro Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok has drafted a stacked team.

The six-time LoL World Champion’s success has gone beyond esports as Faker was awarded the highest sports honour in South Korea.

Going last in the first round, Faker got to pick twice in a row and managed quite the coup.

His first picks were both former Worlds winners in Dplus’ Heo ‘ShowMaker‘ Su and Faker’s former teammate Lee ‘Scout‘ Ye-chan who recently returned to the LCK with Nongshim RedForce.

And if that wasn’t good enough, he then managed to draft the Game Awards 2025 Esports Athlete of the Year Jeong ‘Chovy‘ Ji-hoon.

The team of midlaners was then rounded up by DRX’s Son ‘ucal‘ Woo-hyeon.

Team MID won the event last year and will be heavy favourites to win the 2026 iteration too.

Team BOT

Gen.G’s Ruler is captaining team bot while last year’s captain and Worlds MVP, Lee ‘Gumayusi’ Min-hyung, has surprisingly missed out.

Gumayusi’s replacement at T1, Kim ‘Peyz‘ Su-hwan, was instead Ruler’s first pick after T1’s new signing impressed during offseason events.

The bot role looks stacked in the LCK this year and that shone through with Team BOT’s eventual full roster.

Ruler and Peyz will be joined by Park ‘Teddy‘ Jin-seong from Hanjin BRION, Dplus’ Sin ‘Smash‘ Guem-jae, and Nam ‘Diable‘ Dae-geun and FEARX.

Team SUP

The support team was unsurprisingly led by possibly the greatest support ever, T1’s Keria.

TEAM SUP will see Keria joined by KT Rolster’s Jang ‘Ghost‘ Yong-jun, FEARX’s Kim ‘Kellin‘ Hyeong-gyu, HWE’s Yu ‘Delight‘ Hwan-jung, and Kim ‘Life‘ Jeong-min from SOOPers.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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