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DWG KIA League of Legends players and staff who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 were cleared on Monday, ahead of the 2022 LoL Worlds knockout stage commencing this Thursday.
A League of Legends commentator, Rita, translated the screenshot of the franchise’s post on Discord and revealed that the entire team had tested negative. ”Canyon and Daeaokdam get recovery, and the whole team is tested negative,” her post read.
Although the post revealed that the entire DWG KIA team, including their players and staff, had been cleared of COVID, Noh “Burdol” Tae-Yoon and Park “Bubbling” Jun-hyeong were not given any special mention. The substitute and the team’s coach tested positive for the virus on October 14.
The team’s post at the time explained that the “upcoming games and schedules will be adjusted accordingly to the Worlds protocols and policies”. This meant the players would participate in the next few games in a remote, isolated venue according to Riot Games’ COVID-19 policies.
Besides DWG KIA, last week was riddled with several COVID-19 announcements from teams participating in the 2022 League of Legends World Championship. EDward Gaming were the first to announce their players’ COVID-19 diagnosis, then DWG KIA and Gen.G followed suit a day before the group stage’s second phase of round-robin matches.
On October 16, the entire lineup and coaching staff of Royal Never Give Up also tested positive for the virus. Due to the number of teams and players infected with COVID-19, they had to participate in the group stage’s second round-robin remotely.
Despite this, DWG KIA qualified for the tournament’s knockout stage after defeating G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses. The Korean team also emerged as the victor in their first outing against JD Gaming. However, they lost a tiebreaker and finished second in Group B.
The quarterfinal stage of the tournament will see eight teams play against each other in best-of-five matches, and only four teams will move on to the semifinals. This stage will kick off on Thursday, October 20, with Jingdong Gaming facing off against Rogue.
DWG KIA will duke it out with LCK’s Gen.G on October 22. Coach Yang “Daeny” Dae-in’s team will be going into the game as +269 outsiders, with Gen.G pegged as -384.62 favorites on the leading LoL betting sites.
DWG get the better of their Korean counterparts, they will advance to the semifinals and take on the winner between EDward Gaming and DRX. Those two teams will compete against each other on October 23, in the concluding match of the quarterfinal round.
