In their Tier 1 debut last year, Disguised got off to a difficult start. The team, founded by famous Twitch streamer Jeremy "
Disguised Toast" Wang, had found solid success back in the NACL, but as the new provisional guest team in the LTA North's first and only year of existence, they faltered.
That rookie-filled roster included a rookie head coach, promoting
Ian "Ido" McCormick, who'd before only coached in Tier 2 and below, quickly from assistant to head coach.
After qualifying to make it to 2026's LCS,
Disguised has announced a new roster, trading out most pieces for new ones, including an all-new set of rookies. However, Coach Ido still remains at the head of the team, prompting
Sheep Esports to sit down with him, discussing the team's offseason, the previous year, and what the new roster's players bring to the table.
Talk to us about the decision to retain Cho "Castle" Hyeon-seong, the only player from last year’s DSG.
Ian "ido" McCormick: “Yeah, to be honest, I thought Castle was gonna be gone. He played really well, I thought he was gonna get a lot of opportunities. But when he said he was available and wanted to come back, personally, I believe in loyalty a lot. So, when someone does right by you, and performs really well– he went through a lot of pretty bad things at DSG throughout the whole year, and, I think if he wants to come back, that should be rewarded. So, to me, that was a no-brainer for sure. He’s a great player, I still think he’s a great player, and
I’m more than happy to have him back.
So, with you remaining as head coach, and Castle remaining in the toplane, what lessons from the previous year will the two of you carry over into this iteration of the roster?
Ido: To me, I just think it’s a new team. And it pretty much is a whole revamp, more or less. So, we’re not really thinking about last year too much. Especially because I wasn’t really there at the beginning; I was only there for the second half. So, I wasn’t able to instill a lot of the things I believe in. It was more just inheriting a ship and trying to ride it as best I could. This year, I’ve got a lot of great ideas for how I want to start, the kind of culture I want to instill in them, team values, how we should treat each other. Not too focused on last year, just trying to create a really strong project that I’m leading from the beginning this time.
The team has two fresh-to Tier 1 rookies in Sajed "Sajed" Ziade and Christian "KryRa" Rahaian, who’ve already had some brief experience playing with each other last year. What kind of approach is the team taking to these rookies’ development?
Ido: I made it very clear, with pretty much everyone, that I was recruiting for every other role, that I intend to get rookies. These are rookies that I’m not just getting for the sake of it. I’m incredibly excited about them. In that, you need to be a role model, you need to show them how to be a professional, you need to support them, think back to when you were a rookie, and how you would want to be treated, and how you would want to be supported. That’s kind of the same thing that I’m asking them to put forward here, and I think we’ve got a really good group of guys that are excited to play with rookies,
especially ones with as much talent as Sajed and Kryra.
About Oh "callme" Ji-hoon, who had a pretty mixed debut in the LCK two years ago, and last year played in the Turkish league: How did the team decide on this midlaner in particular?
Ido:
I’ve been scouting callme for quite a while. I think last year, when there was a lot of roster shakeup with DSG, he was a candidate to come over. So, I was scouting him six, seven months ago. I was really familiar with his game. What I appreciated the most about callme was his consistency, no matter what was happening. Going back to the same thing we were talking about with expectations for having a rookie: being consistent, being that rock for them. If you look at callme’s last year, he had three different botlanes, he had three different jungles, and no matter what, he was still performing at the top of what you could expect from him. I found that incredibly valuable. Even within that, even within all the changes, he was performing and getting top three, top two, and then won the league, on MISA. I think in that order. No matter what changes they were putting in front of him, he found success no matter what and that was very valuable to me.
Are you anticipating facing Sentinels, given that their roster is composed of three-fifths of last year’s DSG, including DARKWINGS, Rahel, and Huhi.
Ido: Yeah, I think it’s gonna be fun. I went out for dinner two days ago with DARKWINGS (Isaac Chou) and Exyu (Lawrence Xu), just kinda catching up over the offseason. That was pretty fun. We all still like each other, it’s gonna be fun. But truthfully, when the season starts, I don’t have friends outside of the team. I’m not super interested in talking to people who aren’t inside of my team. So, we can have fun now, but, once it gets to the season, they’re all the same to me. All teams are the same to me. It’s just an obstacle that we have to overcome."
