Dplus KIA have announced the arrival of their new coach, Kim "cvMax" Dae-ho, following a disappointing LCK split for the organization and an underwhelming stint in China for cvMax with
JD Gaming. The coach had joined the Chinese team at the start of the 2025 season, but just a few months later,
the organization announced his departure by mutual agreement. The stated reason was "
the need to return to home country for health recovery."
Dplus KIA just went through a very rough split in the LCK. The end of their first split was already far from perfect, but it was only the Winter. Things got much worse during Round 1-2 of the LCK, with the team struggling throughout a very inconsistent regular season that ended in a tiebreaker against
KT Rolster to determine who would finish fifth — a spot that guarantees entry into the Legend Group for the Summer Split, which features the strongest LCK teams.
Unfortunately for DK, they lost that best-of-three and will now compete in the Rise Group this Summer alongside
BNK FearX,
OKSavingsBank BRION,
DN Freecs, and
DRX.
Despite the Spring struggles, DK still qualified for the Road to MSI and had a chance to bounce back. They faced KT once again, just days after their tiebreaker — this time in a best-of-five. But history repeated itself: Gwak "
Bdd" Bo-seong
and his teammates swept DK 3-0, eliminating them from the Road to MSI. As of now, the organization has not made any official statement regarding the status of their coaching staff — Head Coach Bae "Bengi" Seong-woong, Ha "Hachani" Seung-chan, and Lee "PoohManDu" Jeong-hyeon.
cvMax is a coach whose reputation precedes him — in both positive and negative ways. He made a name for himself as the head coach of the legendary Griffin roster in the LCK from 2017 to 2019, before being suspended following an investigation by Riot Games. The investigation concluded that cvMax had engaged in both physical and verbal misconduct during his time with the team, leading to an indefinite suspension.
Just over a week later, however, Riot lifted the suspension after admitting to procedural shortcomings in the investigation. He went on to coach DRX until the end of 2021, then joined Kwangdong Freecs in September 2022 for a two-year tenure, though it was without notable results.
