DangMoo makes history as first ever female League of Legends pro in Korea
LiivSANDBOXLiiv SANDBOX’s team in the LCK Challengers League has signed DangMoo, marking the first time any League of Legends team in South Korea has put a female pro player on their roster.
Over the past few years, there’s been a great deal of effort put into creating environments where women can thrive as pro gamers, but this is often done by separating women from men by creating an entirely different pro circuit.
Valorant’s Game Changers tournament is a great example, and has put many female pros in the spotlight playing for massive prize pools in front of a big audience. But it’s rare that women get the chance to play in the big leagues that dominate esports.
Jeon ‘DangMoo’ Su-jin, a female support player in League of Legends, has been signed to Liiv SANDBOX Challengers. This marks the first time a woman has been signed to a South Korean pro team.
DangMoo becomes first female LoL pro in Korea
While DangMoo was signed largely because of her strong play on Enchanters like Yuumi and Lulu, she’s known for much more than her ability to play League of Legends. She’s also a popular content creator, with over 200k subscribers on YouTube and 186k followers on Twitch.
On stream, she’s been known for both her high-level support play and her variety content, where she plays some other games and, at times, does drawing streams. She even has her own, green-haired original character complete with a VTuber model.
But now, DangMoo is stepping into the world of pro play to put her skills as a support player to the test against some of the strongest players South Korea has to offer.
While this isn’t quite as big as being signed to the LCK proper, plenty of world-class players spent time honing their skills in the Challengers league. Players like Cloud9’s Kim ‘Berserker’ Min-cheol and Vitality’s Kyeong ‘Photon’ Gyu-tae both spent time with T1’s Challengers team, for instance.
However, DangMoo isn’t the only support player on LSB’s Challengers team. Her signing came a few weeks after the announcement of their full roster, raising some questions about whether or not she will in fact start for the team.
Liiv SANDBOX Challengers League roster (picture taken weeks before DangMoo announcement)On one hand, DangMoo may have to compete with Hong ‘PlanB’ Jun-seok for the chance to play. On the other, this could be a route into the LCK that allows her career as a pro player to flourish.