UPDATE Nov. 15: During the Dot Esports League of Legends Free Agency Show, Jacob Wolf stated that the clause in Perkz's buyout contract from G2 Esports to Cloud9 that prohibits Fnatic from signing Perkz through 2023 was signed by both G2 & C9, but not Perkz himself.
C9 can’t just plug Perkz in place of Nisqy and expect to become a better team, and that’s even before accounting for Fudge’s LCS debut this coming spring. New head coach Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin should help a semi-established roster start fresh, and the execution of the new C9 system being put into place will be crucial for the organization to get the mileage out of Perkz worth the price of admission.
Perkz and G2 Esports accomplished many things together, and finding a suitable replacement for the former franchise face is an unenviable task. However, there are a few options that stand out from other available players who are best suited to take Perkz’s place. Let’s take a look at a few of these potential options and evaluate the potential value and likelihood of G2 Esports signing one of these three players.
UPDATE 11/12: Cloud9 has reportedly agreed to buyout G2 Esports mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perković. The agreement is only verbal as a deal cannot be finalized in writing until the start of the free agency window on Monday, November 16th at 7:00pm ET. G2 Esports will now look for a new AD carry to replace Perkz, and since Perkz will be returning to the mid lane with C9 should the report hold true, it would mean current C9 mid laner Yasin "Nisqy" Dincer would be placed on a buyout.
Senna support will probably not be seen again, and rightfully so, but the methodology behind the pick was sound in context, and any questioning of G2's competitive integrity on the Worlds stage in favor of sabotaging Team Liquid is an immature conflation of the reasoning behind the result at best and a baseless accusation at worst.
On Friday, December 13, G2 Esports uploaded a video to its twitter account featuring Bot Laner Luka "Perkz" Perković and Mid Laner Rasmus "Caps" Winther swapping into each other's roles for a Ranked game of League of Legends, with hints that the roleswap may be occuring on the actual team for the 2020 LEC Spring Split. Two days later, Jungler Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski provided context to G2's most recent roleswap on stream via Twitch.
Mages are the second most common ranged class, can offer lots of flexibility in draft due to many being viable Mid Lane champions, and in dealing primarily magic damage, can allow for compositional flexibility should other roles want to draft heavily towards physical damage.
In winning its second straight LEC Grand Final, G2 Esports also reached several milestones as individual players and an organization.
The Unforgiven appeared three times during Rift Rivals 2019: NA vs. EU, securing wins in all three games as a pivotal factor in each victory.
