Fnatic explain the decision to bring in their new toplaner Soboro

started the 2026 season with high hopes, yet the results haven’t followed the expectations. The seventh-place finish during the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) Spring Split was an improvement over the eighth-place regular season finish from the 2026 Versus tournament. However, this Spring Split finish meant they missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2023 Winter Split.

Head Coach Fabian “GrabbZ" Lohmann and Assistant Coach Andrei “" Pascu weighed their options during the offseason and decided to replace rookie toplaner Panagiotis “" Tantis. In his place, Korean toplaner Lim “" Seong-min was chosen from the LPL’s as the replacement ahead of the Summer Split.

On Thursday, Fnatic released a video detailing the process of how they chose their new player. According to the coaching staff, the team needed a change to improve the team’s dynamic and because Empyros wasn’t progressing as expected.

The decision to bring the Korean came after an extensive search across NA, EMEA, KR, CN, and Vietnam by its coaching staff. They quickly landed on three or four prospects, and according to Odoamne: “The interesting part about him was that from all of our candidates he was, I would say, the only one who was in a tier one region because he played the LPL at the beginning of the year.”

After a detailed analysis and third-party references, the coaching staff concluded that their newest addition’s base level of laning and communication would greatly benefit the team. Soboro, whose nickname comes from a famous bakery found in Daejeon, is a proactive laner who loves jungle attention. Hoping this changes people’s perception about the team, GrabbZ comments that “people always come back to Fnatic and talk about our bot lane approach.”

“My opinion of him is that he's someone who is extremely aggressive and he really, really wants to fight,” Odoamne shares about what the LEC should expect from the baker. “He loves fighting, and he loves inviting you to fight. He's the kind of guy who takes a lot of ego battles."

IG picked up the rookie toplaner for the LPL Split 1 after one-and-a-half years at . Soboro had won the 2025 LCK CL Season Playoffs and had a great showing during IG’s 2025 Demacia Cup win. Expectations were high before the start of Split 1.

However, IG were unable to reproduce the results of the offseason tournament during the first split of the year. The baker’s team didn’t prove the dough and couldn’t find more wins against the top teams, forcing them to finish Group Ascend dead-last. They qualified for the playoffs and quickly exited, ending the season with a 5-6th finish.

As his new Head Coach states in the video: “People also forget he was in the Legends group where all the top top top players are which are honestly speaking on a higher caliber than what we have in Europe.”

Before the start of Split 2, IG brought in veteran Chinese toplaner Chen “" Chen and sent the Korean rookie to the bench. Soboro didn’t feature for the 2018 World Champions again, and was out of the team by the middle of June.

The passionate Fnatic fanbase had mixed reactions to the announcement of the Korean toplaner. Some fans reacted positively to the news, yet others removed their rose-tinted glasses when weighing the pros and cons of the transfer.

Some fans appreciated the video and brought a positive light on the situation by welcoming him and hoping Odoamne could help him quickly find his footing and develop. However, other fans were skeptical about the organization bringing another import to the team.

The baker is ready to leave his mark on the LEC with Fnatic by kneading to the ground during Week 2 of the LEC Summer Split. Grabbz considers Soboro to be ready: “He's aware of the narratives. He's also aware that he had a good year before that. He just wants to show that he belongs and deserves his chance. We all believe in him, and we think he's gonna do it.”