Sources: SK Gaming planning major roster shake-up across the board

SK Gaming are exploring their options across all five positions ahead of the 2026 LEC season, sources tell Sheep Esports on Friday. One of the first organizations to see their year end in the league, SK are working on rebuilding their roster from the ground up and could change its five-man roster entirely.

All five starters from the 2025 Summer Split have contracts expiring at the end of the year, giving both players and the organization freedom to fully test the offseason market and potentially make some of the earliest moves. In the meantime, the organization is already evaluating multiple players for every position, most of them currently competing in the ERLs.

With all five contracts set to expire, new deals will need to be signed. While most of the roster is expected to change, sources tell us that jungler Duncan "Skeanz" Marquet has a decent chance of re-signing with the team.

While the roster remains uncertain, SK Gaming will continue relying on head coach David "OWN3R" Rodriguez, who will stay on to oversee the project in 2026, as previously reported by Sheep Esports. The decision gives the veteran coach the opportunity to bring stability to a team that fielded different lineups in each split this year. In 2025, the organization has aligned ten different players across all roles.

This approach comes as little surprise given SK’s standing in the LEC, yet they have still managed to provide opportunities to emerging talent. This year, the team welcomed players such as Tim "Keduii" Willers in Spring, who lifted the EMEA Masters trophy in Summer 2024 with BDS Academy before moving to the LEC stage, and Park "DnDn" Geun-woo in Summer among others, former Nongshim Redforce toplaner which played in TCL at the beginning of 2025.

The organization is also still looking for an Assistant Coach, which seems to be the priority before signing new players.

The 2025 season has taken its toll on several members of the roster. Following SK’s elimination from the Summer Split, veteran midlaner Felix "Abbedagge" Braun admitted in an interview with Sheep Esports that “This year has been a mental struggle for me. I've been fighting not to get into a bad mindset.” Through the entire Summer, including their preparation in the inter-split and during the NNO Cup, he explained the team didn't manage to "fuse together through the struggles."

The results were equally disappointing. SK Gaming finished 9th in all three LEC splits this year, never qualifying for playoffs and playing only 37 official games in total — one of the lowest total across all major regions, showcasing how punitive the current format can be for non-performing teams.

Founded in 1997 by a small group of Quake players and present in the top LoL European league since 2013, SK Gaming’s legacy is far from negligible. They once reached as high as third place in the 2014 Summer Split and even competed twice at the World Championship, in 2012 and 2014. Those international appearances feel distant today, but they remain a reminder of what the organization can achieve when the right pieces come together.

Since the beginning of the LEC era in 2019, the organization never managed to do better than a 4th place in Winter 2023. As SK Gaming open a new chapter, they aim to rebuild from the bottom up, hoping to recapture some of that former glory in the years ahead.

For more roster changes, check out our Transfers Hub and Offseason Live Tracker.