Team Griffin

Dignitas Academy signs former TSM jungler Akaadian

Ethan Chen

Published: Dec 18, 2019 06:14 am

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North American esports organization Dignitas has signed former Team SoloMid jungler Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham to its League of Legends Academy team. The 22-year-old joins Dignitas Academy after competing for Team SoloMid for two years, with positions on both rosters.

Dignitas Academy signs Akaadian

“See you guys in 2020,” wrote Akaadian on Twitter.

Akaadian started competing in 2014 on Challenger Series teams like everFrag, Zenith Esports, Legendary, Winterfox, Top Dog Gaming, and Team Liquid Academy. With the start of the North American League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), he joined Echo Fox for the 2017 season. The jungler didn’t get his first upper half bracket placement until joining Team SoloMid from a previous position on OpTic Gaming.

During his first split with the new team, Team SoloMid finished in 3rd during the 2019 LCS Spring Split, 2nd in Spring Split Playoffs, and 2nd at Rift Rivals. It seemed like everything was going great for him with the team’s improvement on performance. However, the organization decided to replace him with Jonathan “Grig” Armao as the starting jungler during the Summer Split.

With 10 wins and 8 losses, the team finished in 4th during the Summer Split, but it still had a chance at Summer Playoffs. Suddenly, fans were confused when newly promoted Academy player Mingyi “Spica” Lu replaced both Akaadian and Grig on the roster. The team fell to Clutch Gaming in 5 – 6 at Summer Playoffs and repeated the same result with the same opponent at the Regional Finals.

Dignitas recently extended the contract of top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon for two years, at a reported $2.3 million. It then signed support Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black, mid laner Henrik “Froggen” Hansen, AD carry Johnson Nguyen, and Grig. Meanwhile, Akaadian will play for the Academy roster with former Dignitas mid laner Tanner “Damonte” Damonte, Tom “Rodov” Rodov, and two AD carries in former Echo Fox Academy player Kim “Fenix” Jae-hun and former Clutch Academy player Richard Samuel “Rikara” Oh.