Former Vision Strikers player Lakia joins IGZIST

DRX Vision Strikers has transferred VALORANT player Kim “Lakia” Jong-min to Japanese team IGZIST, the organizations revealed today. 

Lakia will compete in the Asia-Pacific region, which saw teams such as Team Secret and FULL SENSE rise to prominence on the international stage. Both teams attended VALORANT Champions, which concluded in December 2021. 

Fans of the player will get more opportunities to see Lakia in action since he’s joining the starting roster for IGZIST. Under DRX Vision Strikers, Lakia wasn’t part of the starting roster and frequently spent his time on the sidelines as a substitute.

At Champions, Lakia played one map on Icebox against Fnatic in the winner’s group stage. The highly anticipated match, which took place on Dec. 3, saw Fnatic come out on top with a 2-1 victory. The European team secured direct qualification to the knockout stage. DRX Vision Strikers were later defeated by Cloud9, which ended their tournament run. 

IGZIST recently acquired the majority of the BlackBird Ignis roster, which hasn’t competed in VALORANT since August last year. Former player Souta “popogachi” Morita retired from competing while the rest of the team joined IGZIST, which was revealed by the organization on Dec. 9, 2021.

Vision Strikers’ parent company eDreamWork Korea was acquired by fellow Korean organization DRX on Jan. 6. This means the VALORANT team will follow the DRX branding for the upcoming Korean VALORANT Champions Tour, which begins on Feb. 5 and conclude on March 27. 

IGZIST will likely compete in Stage One: Challengers in Japan, which kicks off on Feb. 15.