Afreeca Freecs have had two rosters, AF.Red and AF.Blue, since acquiring the teams from MiG in August 2016. AF.Blue were always the more successful of the two sister teams, and Afreeca Freecs announced recently that they were disbanding the Red team.
While AF.Blue made it to the finals of APEX Season 1, the quarterfinals of APEX S2, and came third in the most recent APEX Season 3, AF.Red have been languishing in Challengers for the majority of their lifespan. Outside of a brief run in APEX Season 2 which saw them finish last place with zero map wins - albeit in a group of death - AF.Red has been a relatively strong Challengers team but outside of the top teams in Korea.
AF.Red had a worse season than usual in the most recent Challengers Season 4, finishing in sixth. The result would have been a double disappointment for AF.Red as they missed out on qualification spots by a single place, as drops in APEX teams allowed the top five from Challengers to move up without Super Week.
According to Afreeca Freecs coach TaiRong, however, AF.Red’s fate was sealed no matter their performance. Even if the team had made APEX this season, Afreeca Freecs finances made it an impossibility to keep the Red team active alongside Blue.
The official announcements on Twitter and Facebook indicated that Afreeca Freecs were happy with the success of both teams over the past year but had decided to focus on a single roster to really push that success to the next level.
Also included in the announcement was news that former AF.Red flex support player InYounng would remain contracted to the organisation as an inactive player for AF.Blue. The rest of the players are released as free agents.
The former Afreeca Freecs Red was:
- Nam ”attune” Ki-hoon (DPS)
- Kim ”Creed” Hyeon-keong (DPS)
- Kim ”SanSam” Hyang Ki (Flex)
- Oh ”Rio” Seung-pyo (Tank)
- Lee ”InYoungg” In Yeong (Support)
- Song ”QuarterMain” Ji-hoon (Support)
- Kim ”Navi” Hyo-jin (Support)
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