Official Announcement
[IG Esports Club player roster change announcement]
First post.
[We are pleased to announce that, following extensive and friendly discussions... Song Yijin (ID: Rookie) has renewed his contract...]
[Accompanied by a handsome photo of Rookie]
Comments:
[That's the good news. What's the bad news?]
[What about the others?]
[Hope they all renew!]
[No elder abuse allowed?]
[Rookie is great...]
Second post.
[We are pleased to announce that, following extensive and friendly discussions... Kang Seung-lok (ID: TheShy) has renewed his contract...]
[Accompanied by a handsome photo of TheShy]
Comments:
[Yes!]
[The all-god lineup lives on!]
[Daddy Shy is so handsome, I want to have your babies...]
[Not as good as Bin]
Third post.
[We are pleased to announce that, following extensive and friendly discussions... Yan Yangwei (ID: Wei) has renewed his contract...]
[Accompanied by a handsome photo of Wei]
Comments:
[Hurry up, everyone's waiting for the dishes that come after!]
[Stop squeezing it out like toothpaste, man. Just post them all at once!]
[Come on, Wei, you have to get results next year!]
[If you hadn't gone into the dragon pit like that, you would have won...]
[The time-line-altering Haymaker to clear a control ward.]
Fourth post.
[We are pleased to announce that, following extensive and friendly discussions... Gao Zhenning (ID: Ning) has officially joined iG... as a rotating jungler]
[Accompanied by a handsome photo of Brother City Wall]
Comments:
[???????]
[???????]
[They really brought in the instruction manual?]
[Can this guy still play?]
[Come on, man. Is this real?]
[Is my boy Wei getting benched again?]
[Where's the ADC? Where's the ADC?]
Fifth post.
[We are pleased to announce that, following extensive and friendly discussions... Jian Zihao (ID: Uzi) has officially joined iG... as ADC.]
[Accompanied by a handsome photo of Uzi]
Comments:
[???????]
[He really came!]
[Holy shit! Uzi!]
[He's coming out of retirement again?]
[Am I guilty?]
[It really is an all-god lineup, huh?]
[All-god lineup × all-traffic lineup ✓ superteam × nursing home ✓]
[Did they give up on their dreams and chase traffic instead? Even reaching the top eight seems like a pipe dream now~~~]
[How's he supposed to compare to Gala?]
[Meiko isn't still going to be the support, is he?]
[It's probably going to be Ming, right?]
Sixth post.
[We are pleased to announce that, following extensive and friendly discussions... Lin Heng (ID: Joker) has officially joined iG... as ADC.]
[Accompanied by a super handsome handsome handsome handsome photo of Lin]
Comments:
[???????]
[???????]
[???????]
[Who is this guy?]
[Insider info: I think he used to be on Royal Never Give Up's second team and played in the LDL for a while.]
[What happened to Ming?]
[Hook God would have been fine too! Why'd they get a rookie?]
[They ran out of money, didn't they?]
[This guy's way too new. They should've bought Erha instead.]
[I don't think developing a rookie is a bad thing?]
[Come on, man, don't joke around. Playing with these guys, he'll be flamed to tears in a matter of days.]
[They might as well just field Meiko...]
[No, no, no, forget Meiko. They'd be better off fielding a rookie and developing him.]
[The team with the highest commercial value and the lowest competitive strength in history has been born!]
[The true super elderly kayak]
[Man, who's going to carry next year?]
[Doesn't anyone think this guy looks a bit like Daniel Wu?]
[Who doesn't?]
[Everyone here is Daniel Wu!]
Netizens were still very satisfied with the new lineup, even though an unknown youngster had been chosen as support.
But at least the promised Rookie, Uzi and TheShy really had come. This team was going to be something else next year—a paradise for haters, fans, trolls and spectators!
The fans couldn't wait for the all-god lineup's debut.
The haters already had their keyboards ready, poised to strike.
The trolls and spectators were already tagging a certain blogger in his comments, telling him to release a single.
Both Invictus Gaming and the organizers held their breath.
They waited until after All-Stars was over to announce the roster, which also meant this lineup had no immediate chance to play.
The Demacia Cup was the next event.
But Invictus Gaming didn't respond to the fans' enthusiasm. Instead, they turned around and sent Wei with a few youngsters from the second team to make an appearance.
They kept the entire audience waiting until the main event of the 2026 LPL First Split!
A full month passed between the roster announcement and the chance to see this team onstage.
The audience was numb from waiting.
But good things were worth waiting for, and the audience finally got to see the new all-god lineup make its debut.
Their opponent was Weibo Gaming, which had made some changes in 2026.
Their lineup that year was Zika in the top lane, Jiejie in the jungle, Xiaohu in the mid lane, Elk as ADC, and Erha as support.
With Xiaohu still holding down the fort, this Weibo Gaming lineup still looked very strong on paper.
It was worth mentioning that, before this opening match of the spring split began, League of Legends had just received a new patch.
It removed Atakhan and Blood Roses, which had drawn criticism in the previous patch, and added a quest system.
Each of the five roles could earn rewards by accumulating quest points.
For example, after completing their quest, top laners could gain a large amount of experience and a bonus to experience gained, and the level cap was also raised to 20.
Supports could get an extra item slot specifically for control wards, and so on. (There were quite a lot of changes in this update, so I'll pick out the main points and won't pad the word count here. I'll post the update details in the comments later for you guys to read~)
The quest system added in this patch seemed innovative, but it was actually intended to solve an old problem.
The trend Zhuo had started back then—lane swapping.
Although the designers had spent nearly all of 2025 trying to solve the lane-swap problem, in the end, every measure had its countermeasure.
In this update, the designers administered a strong dose of medicine in the form of the quest system.
Besides greatly reducing the gold and experience top and bot laners gained from clearing minions in their own lanes, they also placed certain restrictions on quest point gains.
In particular, ADCs earned double quest points in the bot lane. With that, top laners could finally play out their lanes.
Aside from the crucial quest system, mechanics such as Crystalline Overgrowth for turrets and Faelights in the jungle were added, and the minion spawn time was changed from one minute and five seconds to thirty seconds.
This also rendered tactics such as level-one group invades and going to ward for other lanes meaningless.
Updates like this always drew mixed reactions. Some viewers and players felt that losing the variety of level-one fights meant fewer strategic possibilities and would make matches boring.
Other pro players who liked watching and playing the laning phase unanimously thought it was an excellent change.
But whether this change had perfectly solved the problem or created new ones was something for the games and players to find out.
Invictus Gaming versus Weibo Gaming promised plenty to watch.
The debut of Invictus Gaming's newly assembled lineup was highly anticipated, and the restructured Weibo Gaming lineup also had fans eagerly looking forward to it.
On the afternoon of January 14, the opening match officially began.