Sources: SlowQ to play EWC Qualifiers with SK Gaming

The project built around friends wanting to play together at SK Gaming is slowly starting to fade, as Seo "" Ye-bit is set to compete with the Schroet Kommando the EWC EMEA Qualifiers. This movement means he will be replacing Adam "" Ilyasov in the midlane, sources tell Sheep Esports on Friday.

Per sources, SK Gaming is in negotiations with SlowQ, which could see the Swedish-Korean midlaner make his way to the LEC. In the meantime, LIDER will continue as the team's starting midlaner in Riot’s competition.

The EWC EMEA Qualifiers kick off on April 28, featuring 12 teams — the 10 LEC teams plus the top 2 from EMEA Masters (Solary, Galions) — with the two best teams earning a spot at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh. The qualifier runs concurrently with the LEC Spring Split, meaning SK Gaming could potentially field two different midlaners across two separate competitions. Note that SK Gaming does not have an academy team in the ERLs anymore.

SK Gaming has just gone through two difficult splits. In Winter, during LEC Versus, SK finished second to last, only ahead of Karmine Corp Blue, and were far from the Top 8 needed to qualify for playoffs. In Spring, they only managed to scrape together two wins, against and , not enough to make up for the losses suffered throughout the split.

SlowQ will be the only change to the roster for the qualifiers. Therefore, the team will be made up of the usual three veterans, Martin "" Hansen, Duncan "" Marquet, and cornerstone Mihael "" Mehle, who all remain in place to guide the young duo of Josip "" Čančar and SlowQ, who will either be discovering or continuing to discover the highest level of European competition.

As for Jopa, the adaptation has been going fairly well for the Croatian AD Carry, who has managed to stand out at times despite the team’s difficult matches. However, the team often struggled after rough laning phases in mid from LIDER, while things were not easy in the toplane either, where Wunder also had some difficult moments.

At just 22 years old, SlowQ is set to make the leap by joining a Tier 1 team. The Swedish-Korean midlaner began his career in 2021 with Riddle Esports and X7 Esports in the NLC, before joining Zero Tenacity in the Ultraliga, which he went on to win, earning his first appearance at the EMEA Masters.

In 2024, he moved to DSYRE in the Italian league, which he also won, and with whom he competed twice in the EMEA Masters. It was really in 2025 that he broke into the public eye by joining Karmine Corp Blue in the LFL, the French league, which he won twice, finally lifting the EMEA Masters trophy.

At the start of 2026, he joined Misa Esports in the TCL but still hoped to receive an LEC offer, which did not materialize. He still went on to win the Turkish league and finished third in the EMEA Masters before Misa eventually decided to disband its roster.

SlowQ is therefore set to join a rather dysfunctional roster, which has at times shown that it can work if it manages to adopt a more controlled style of play. His role will be to bring a sense of stability, something that does not really characterize LIDER’s gameplay. It remains to be seen what this roster can produce, and whether the trio of Skeanz, SlowQ, and Mikyx will be able to find the right synergy.