KT Rolster Sign RapidStar As LoL Head Coach

South Korean esports organization announced Jung “RapidStar” Min-sung as the new head coach of its League of Legends division. The 29-year-old joins KT as a former coach for Edward Gaming, SK Telecom T1, FlyQuest, and Cloud9.

Following a disappointing ending to the 2022 League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) season, KT Rolster decided to make changes to its coaching personnel ahead of the 2023 season. As revealed on Sunday, November 6, KT Rolster have signed RapidStar, who will replace Choi “Acorn” Cheon-ju as the team’s new head coach.

Acorn leaves KT Rolster following a three-year-long journey with the organization, which he joined in November 2019. Before coaching KT, Acorn served as head coach of LGD Gaming and Kingzone DragonX, with who he placed second in the LCK 2019 Regional Finals.

However, despite his early success as an LoL coach, Acorn has struggled to reach the same heights with KT Rolster. In his first year with the team, Acorn finished the season in fourth place in LCK 202 Regional Finals, thus missing out on qualifying for LoL World Championship.

Things didn’t improve in the 2021 season, in which KT Rolster again crashed out of the Regional Finals in fourth place after finishing the LCK Spring and Summer splits in seventh and fifth place, respectively. Acorn’s most notable success at the helm of KT Rolster came in December 2020, when he reached the semifinals of KeSPA Cup 2022.

Now, after years of disappointing results and a lack of titles, KT Rolster decided to freshen up its coaching staff with the addition of an established head coach RapidStar.

RapidStar is a 29-year-old former League of Legends pro who played for MiG Frost, Azubu Frost, and CJ Entus from 2021-2013. Although he has not won any international events, RapidStar has achieved a lot throughout his playing career – he won the Champions 2012 Summer, placed top-four at IEM Season 7 Katowice, and was runner-up at IEM Season 7 World Championship.

After taking a three-year-long break from pro play, RapidStar returned to the LoL pro scene as a head coach for Edward Gaming in January 2016. With the Chinese LoL team, RapidStar won LPL 2016 Summer Playoffs and reached the playoffs of the LoL World Championship.

For the 2017 season, he moved to coach SK Telecom T1, with who he won LCK 2017 Spring, but after finishing the LCK 2017 Summer, he was let go and moved to North America.

In the LoL Championship Series (LCS), RapidStar took over FlyQuest for a single split and the next year; he moved to Cloud9, with whom he placed second in NA LCS 2018 Summer Playoffs and won NA Regional Finals 2018.

In 2019 he continued showing his prowess as a head coach, leading Cloud9 to runner-up finishes at LCS 2019 Spring and LCS 2019 Summer and a semifinal run at LCS 2019 Spring Playoffs. RapidStar later stepped down from his head coach position to serve as an assistant coach of Cloud9 and its academy roster before leaving the organization in October 2020.

Most recently, RapidStar served as an analyst for Riot Games for four months and has now announced his return to pro play.

The signing of RapidStar marks KT Rolster’s first roster move of the offseason, with more changes expected to follow suit in the coming weeks. KT Rolster are supposedly looking to rebuild its LoL roster for the 2023 year in a bid to bounce back from their shaky performances in 2022.

Known as one of the most successful Korean LoL teams in the earlier days of competitive LoL, KT Rolster have been struggling since winning LCK 2018 Summer Playoffs.

Notably, the team has failed to win a single title since September 2018 and have not reached a single LoL World Championship since they placed fifth-eighth at LoL Worlds 2018.