TheShy LoL: Career, Champions and Worlds 2026

TheShy (Kang Seung-lok) is a South Korean top laner who plays for Invictus Gaming in China’s LPL. In LoL esports he is best known for winning Worlds 2018 with iG, reaching the Worlds 2023 final with Weibo Gaming, and building his reputation on carry top laners such as Jayce, Rumble and Gnar.

He returned to iG on 16 December 2024 for a second stint with the organization that launched his career. In 2026 he holds the top side of a team that has qualified for another World Championship.

TheShy is winning a larger share of his games in 2026 than last year while taking a smaller slice of his team’s resources. In 2025 he played 144 games and finished with a 58.3% win rate; this season’s sample is smaller so far, but the win rate sits higher.

The shape of his games has changed as well. He dies less often per game, and both his damage share and his kill participation are down on 2025. Read together, that describes a top laner who spends more time holding a side lane and less time joining every skirmish in the middle of the map.

His CS/min and vision per minute have both risen, which points to cleaner laning and more attention to map control. His KDA is almost identical across the two seasons, so the improvement shows up in results rather than in his individual lines. For iG that is a useful trade: a top laner who stabilizes his lane and lets the carries behind him take the gold.

Rumble is TheShy’s most played champion this season and the only one with enough games to judge. It has produced a winning record, which matches his history: Rumble is one of his career staples, and he still reaches for it in playoff series.

Behind Rumble the pool is wide and shallow. Gnar, Yorick and Olaf share the next spot, each with only a handful of games, so their winning records are encouraging rather than conclusive. K’Sante and Camille fill out the regular rotation, while Trundle, Kled, Gragas and even Vayne show up as one-game pocket picks.

Jayce is the odd result. It is one of the champions his name is built on, yet this year’s games on it have mostly ended in losses, on far too few games to read much into. Ambessa and Dr. Mundo sit in the same small-sample bracket, so treat their numbers as noise until the sample grows.

Across his career, Gnar, Jayce, Rumble, Kennen and Aatrox are the signature champions, with Renekton, Riven and Fiora also closely tied to his name. Gnar and Jayce sit at the top of his career pool, while some old staples have faded: Kennen has not appeared since 26 May 2024, and Vladimir was last played on 30 August 2020.

His Rumble build is a damage-over-time setup. Liandry’s Torment is the anchor, Bloodletter’s Curse and Zhonya’s Hourglass are the usual follow-ups, and the runes run Deathfire Touch from Sorcery with a Resolve secondary of Bone Plating and Unflinching. It is a build for drawn-out teamfights in which sustained damage adds up, with Zhonya’s Hourglass buying time to stay in them.

On Gnar he goes Trinity Force and Sterak’s Gage, adding Wit’s End when he needs magic resist, with Lethal Tempo leading a Precision page. That is a duelist’s setup: he wants extended trades and fights that last long enough for attack speed to stack, and Sterak’s Gage keeps him alive while it happens.

Yorick is built for turret pressure. Trinity Force into Spear of Shojin is the core, with Randuin’s Omen or Thornmail when he needs armor, and the runes pair Grasp of the Undying with Demolish from Resolve and an Inspiration secondary. Demolish exists to take turrets, so the whole page says he plans to split push and drag the map toward his lane.

All three run Flash and Teleport, the standard pairing for a top laner who wants to join fights from a side lane. If you copy these setups in Ranked Solo/Duo, check the latest patch notes first, since item and rune values move between patches, and use our guides for the side-lane play these builds are made for.

His latest games come from the LPL 2026 Regional Finals in mid-September, where iG played series against Top Esports and JD Gaming, and from the LPL 2026 Grand Finals against Anyone’s Legend before that. The champion spread is wide: Gnar, Rumble, K’Sante, Yorick and Camille, plus Jayce, Dr. Mundo, Gwen and a top-lane Anivia.

Gnar is the one champion he went back to in both Regional Finals series, which makes it the clearest comfort pick heading into the international stage. Results from the rest of the region are on our esports hub.

TheShy’s career runs through two Chinese organizations. He joined Invictus Gaming on 8 June 2017 and stayed until 8 August 2021, the stretch that produced his Worlds title and all of his LPL trophies.

He moved to Weibo Gaming on 10 January 2022 and played there until 19 November 2023, the day Weibo finished second at Worlds 2023. That run put him back in a World Championship final with a new roster around him.

He rejoined iG on 16 December 2024 and has started in the top lane since, playing a heavy 2025 schedule of 144 games before the team’s qualification for Worlds 2026.

TheShy’s peak came in 2018, when iG won LPL 2018 Spring, Rift Rivals 2018 LCK-LPL-LMS and LPL 2018 Summer, then finished the year by winning Worlds 2018. That title is the result his standing rests on, and it came in only his second year as a pro.

The trophies continued with the LPL 2019 Spring Playoffs and LPL 2020 Spring, alongside 3rd–4th finishes at MSI 2019 and Worlds 2019. At Weibo Gaming he added the Weibo Cup 2022 and a runner-up finish at Worlds 2023.

Reaching Worlds finals in 2018 and 2023 with two different organizations is what keeps him in the conversation among the top laners of his generation, even in seasons where his team was not the favorite.

TheShy is at Worlds 2026 with Invictus Gaming, which qualified as China #4. The team goes straight into the Main Event and starts in the Swiss stage on 23 October 2026, with the Knockouts to follow for the teams that advance. Follow every stage on the Worlds 2026 hub.