Cover-Credits:
On 12th November, storied Korean organization T1 took down JD Gaming (JDG) in the Worlds 2023 semifinal with a convincing 3-1 score line. After winning the first game easily, T1 went on to lose the second one. However, the team regrouped and bounced back in games three and four to win the electrifying and all-important series.
Following the conclusion of this series, JDG's head coach Yoon "Homme" Sung-young took to Weibo to announce that he will be stepping away from the team and taking a temporary break from competitive League of Legends. He even took the blame for the loss on himself.
JDG Head Coach Homme To Take a Break Next Year
JD Gaming was named as one of "the teams" to beat at Worlds 2023. Having won the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) Spring, Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), and LPL Summer in 2023, JD Gaming was on its way to win Worlds 2023 also and claim the "Golden Road."
A Golden Road is when a team wins all the titles in a competitive year. However, after losing to T1 in the semifinals of Worlds 2023, JDG's Golden Road run was stopped prematurely. This was a heartbreaking end to the team's journey which was well poised to face fellow LPL team Weibo Gaming in the final.
Following this defeat, JDG Head Coach Homme took to his Weibo account to talk about the series and his future plans. According to Twitter user LPL Fanclub, the coach announced a temporary break from League of Legends esports next year.
According to their translation, Homme said, "I should have done better today. I did poorly so we lost the series. Our players are all working pretty hard. I'm sorry for the LPL fans' expectations for us. I hope there will be more people cheer for JDG in the future."
He added, "Next year I will temporarily leave this stage. And it's a pity that we don't have a perfect ending eventually."
But coach Homme reminded fans that JDG won three titles this year (LPL Spring & Summer and MSI 2023) and asked them not to be too sad.
Homme initially entered League of Legends esports as a top laner for MVP White in 2012. He later played for other Korean teams including MVP Ozone, and Samsung White in 2013 and 2014.
He took upon the role of a coach in February 2014 for Samsung White (SSW). However, after his contract with SSW, he moved to China to coach in the LPL. He coached Team WE (December 2016 to November 2017) and JDG. Notably, this is not the first stint for Homme with JDG.
He coached the League of Legends teams between 2018 and 2020 and took a break before joining the team again in 2021.
