Team Vitality signs ONSYDE, the most successful StarCraft II team of 2023

Team Vitality announced the signing of the three StarCraft II players Kang "Solar" Min-soo, Cho "Maru" Seong-ju, and Kim "Ryung" Dong-won, as well as Coach Choi "CranK" Jae-won, who formerly operated under the team name ONSYDE GAMING.

Impressive track records

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Team Vitality has signed arguably the hottest team in the StarCraft II scene, with an impressive track record of success throughout 2023, winning both World Team League seasons of last year.

In Solar, the team has signed the reigning Global StarCraft League (GSL) Code S champion, which is seen as the highest tier of seasonal competition in the StarCraft II scene. The South Korean has also shown a high level of consistency, competing at the highest level for over a decade since his start with team Samsung Galaxy in 2012.

Maru and Ryung are even more veteran players, starting their careers at the inception of the sport in 2010. Especially Maru is seen as a legend of the esport, holding seven prestigious Code S titles with the latest being Season 2 in 2023, just the event before Solar took the throne.

With CranK, Vitality has signed one of the most seasoned coaches who also showed serious competitive chops in the past, competing with SK Telecom T1 in StarCraft: Broodwar and playing for SlayerS in the early days of StarCraft II.

“We're going to be partnering with professionals on the scene and players with legendary status. These criteria are essential to Team Vitality's top performance model,” Co-Founder and President of Team Vitality, Fabien “Neo” Devide said in a press release.

Expansion and future challenges

While esports is experiencing mass layoffs across the industry, Team Vitality has been expanding their efforts to the Asian market, first signing an Indian Call of Duty: Mobile team and now expanding into the South Korean scene with one of its most culturally relevant titles, StarCraft II.

Both Maru and Solar will be participating at IEM Katowice through their direct invites as GSL Code S champions of seasons 2 and 3. The tournament set to start on February 8 features some of the world’s best StarCraft II competitors. During the group stage, an exciting rematch of the most recent Code S Grand Finals between Solar and Koh "GuMiho" Byung-jae is set to take place, while Maru will get to duke it out against the third-placed Zerg player Park "Dark" Ryung-woo.

You can catch Team Vitality’s new signing on IEM’s Twitch stream with the first matches kicking off at 10am BST / 11am CET on the February 8.