The reigning LCK champion T1 has signed Lee “Clozer” Ju-hyun, a 16-year-old mid lane player who will be getting his first chance in a major league.
A change in the spelling of his name was announced alongside his signing. Previously known as “Closer,” he’s changed the S in his moniker to a Z.
Clozer is well-known for his Irelia and Akali play in solo queue. He’s earned a surprising amount of acclaim for his high ceiling mechanics from Western audiences after having many of his highlights go viral on websites like Reddit.
The teenage prodigy has been with the organization since early 2019 when the organization was still branded as SK Telecom T1. But he was only contracted as a trainee player. A trainee is often a young, promising player who hones their skills on some kind of development team.
On that trainee team, he played alongside recently-promoted T1 top laner and winner of multiple weekly LCK MVP honors, Canna.
Earlier this week, T1 announced that substitute mid laner Kim “Gori” Tae-woo would be leaving the roster. Neither Gori nor Clozer have been able to showcase their potential since they’ve been living under the shadow of T1’s current starting mid laner, Faker.
But with the recent announcement of Uzi’s retirement, it may not be so far-fetched to imagine other legend’s retirements may be nearing. Although Faker shows no signs of being over the hill just yet, T1 has signed Clozer to a multi-year deal, so if anything were to happen, they’d be well covered.
The LCK will begin its Summer Split on June 17.
