Less than a year after his trade to KT Rolster from StarTale, Lee "Life" Seung Hyun will once again be switching teams, joining the newly-formed Afreeca Freecs lineup.
KT에서 아프리카 프릭스로 트레이드 되었습니다 팬분들이 걱정 안하셧으면좋겠고 다시 친정팀에서 열심히해서 좋은 모습 보여드리겠습니다.
— 이승현 (@Afreeca_Life) January 27, 2016"I got traded from KT to Afreeca and fans should not worry about me, I am going to try hard on my new team," the tweet reads.
Afreeca has only recently taken on the former SBENU lineup (itself the former StarTale lineup) in order to participate in Proleague 2016.
Life is widely considered to be one of the best Zerg players in StarCraft 2 history, winning 10 premier tournaments, including one BlizzCon championship. He was the runner-up at the 2015 WCS Global Finals.
Lee "Leenock" Dong Nyoung also showed strong play early in StarCraft 2's history, winning four premier tournaments from 2012-2013. Recently, however, he has failed to make deep runs in premier tournaments.
Life and Leenock are not generally considered to be on par in skill level or success, while Afreeca is not nearly as established within the Korean scene as KT Rolster. Life has not traditionally been a particularly strong Proleague player, but has had fantastic individual results. This makes the trade particularly surprising. On the surface, it appears that KT Rolster made a bad deal, but Life's salary and the unique requirements of Proleague play may balance this out.
Christian Paas-Lang is an eSports journalist from Toronto, applauding a big move from Afreeca. You can follow him on Twitter.
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