LW Red rebuilds team for Challengers

LW Red have rebuilt their roster around original members Arcane and Pine alongside NoName who was transferred from sister team LW Blue. Four additional players have joined to create a seven-man roster: ADIOS, ArK, r0ar, and Who.

In the middle of December, before playing in IEM GyeongGi, Luxury Watch shuffled their two rosters together to create a star team and a secondary sister team. Originally it planned the star team to be branded as “Red”, but when the original LW Red roster failed to qualify for APEX Season 2 the star team carried on LW Blue.

The shuffle in December saw Fl0w3r swap out from LW Red, trading with NoName from LW Blue. This was a direct swap of DPS players on the sister teams but made an enormous difference to the level of LW Blue, who have now gone on to be one of the best teams in Korea, winning IEM GyeongGi.

Pine was originally planned to be involved in that shuffle but never played with LW Blue. He returned to LW Red for their promotion games in APEX Super Week, but the team failed spectacularly once again at qualifying for the premiere tournament in Korea. They lost yet again to RunAway, foolishly their choice of opponent, and then were beaten by Afreeca Freecs Red to seal their fate.

The team was faced with another two seasons minimum in Challengers before having another opportunity to make APEX. Beom left LW Red to join Meta Bellum, the Challengers sister team to Meta Athena. There were reports of a LW Red rebuild focused around Pine, which have now been confirmed and announced by Luxury Watch.

Lucio Arcane and DPS Pine remain with the team from their original roster, along with NoName who was traded from LW Blue in December. ADIOS has also joined as a full-time member, previously seen as a replacement during Challengers Season 2 for Fl0w3r who had a wrist injury.

Former flex aWesomeGuy and flex support starky are no longer with Luxury Watch; the three completely new players joining LW Red are ArK, r0ar, and Who. The two former Lucios, ArK and r0ar, have previous Challengers experience playing for Rhinos Gaming Wings and Team Uniqueness ROCCAT respectively. It has not been announced which roles the members of LW Red will occupy.

LW Red have not played any matches yet since shuffling the team. Challengers Season 3 is set to begin this month; offline qualifiers for the lower six spots conclude today.

The new Luxury Watch Red roster for Challengers Season 3 is (with former roles):