Olleh Returns to Pro LoL, Joins Golden Guardians as Support

Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung announced his return to professional League of Legends on Monday, November 15. The 26-year-old is set to join Golden Guardians for the 2022 season as the starting support.

Olleh will re-enter the professional League of Legends esports scene in the 2022 season after a two-year break. The 26-year-old was last seen playing for Dignitas Academy at the start of 2020 and has since served as a positional coach for Golden Guardians LoL Championship Series (LCS) and Academy team.

Although Olleh hasn’t achieved much at the end of his LoL career, he brings plenty of experience to the team. And adding an experienced figure makes sense for a roster comprised of young talent.

Olleh started his LoL career in May 2013 as a support for KT Rolster Arrows and Midas FIO. In 2014, Olleh moved to paiN Gaming in the Brazilian league before joining Hong Kong Esports in the LMS.

The Korean support remained with HKE for over a year and got picked up by Immortals in December 2016. In his debut year in the LCS, Olleh led Immortals to the finals of the 2017 Summer Playoffs, where the team lost to TSM.

Following a bittersweet finish of the year, Olleh got transferred to Team Liquid, who he led to back-to-back domestic titles. But, unfortunately, Liquid couldn’t deliver at the 2018 LoL Worlds, where they finished ninth-12th, ushering in a roster rebuild.

Liquid’s roster rebuild saw Olleh part ways with the organization and join Golden Guardians, where he spent a year. However, success was hard to come by for the Korean support, as GG could only make the LCS Spring Playoffs, yet finished the summer split in seventh.

Olleh’s last stint as a pro player came in early 2020 when he helped Dignitas Academy place top-four in the NA Academy 2020 Spring Playoffs.

As revealed, Olleh will be a part of Golden Guardians’ new roster, which will feature some known faces from 2021. However, as it stands now, only a portion of the squad is confirmed.

As of Tuesday, November 16, the only remaining two players confirmed to play for Golden Guardians in 2022 are top laner Eric “Licorice” Ritchie, mid laner Nicholas Antonio “Ablazeolive” Abbott. This puts a question mark above the ADC and jungle positions.

Golden Guardians currently still field Ethan “Iconic” Wilkinson in the jungle and Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes as their ADC. Still, neither has been locked in to stay with the team heading into the LCS 2022.

The offseason has just begun, so GG has time to find replacements; however, they are unlikely from their academy roster. As revealed earlier this week, GG lost four of their academy players.

Leandro “Newbie” Marcos, Jong-yun “Jay” “Yunbee” Choi, and Tae-ho “Timothy” “RoseThorn” Kim were all released from the team. Meanwhile, Aiden “Niles” Tidwell announced retirement from the LoL esports scene.

With that, GG Academy is left with only one player in Jacob “Prismal” Feinstein. As a result, the NA organization might transfer some of its LCS players to the academy team to fill in the gaps.

It’s unclear what Golden Guardians’ plans are and how will they approach building their rosters for the 2022 season. However, there is a strong possibility GG will field the same jungler and ADC for the 2022 season.

But considering how wild this offseason has been, Golden Guardians just might surprise with a big signing.

More information about Golden Guardians’ LCS roster should become available in the coming weeks. But since there are no rumors, we can only speculate what the LCS team will do.