This Friday morning, Shopify Rebellion and Moist Esports announced a merger — Charles Christopher “MoistCr1TiKaL” White Jr. and Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren, two of the biggest creators in the world and the main owners of Moist, will now be owners of the newly merged organization. Per the announcement, the team will operate under Shopify Rebellion’s banner, continuing to support some — but not all — of Moist’s competitive titles.

Rooted in last year’s highly successful Moist Moguls venture in North America’s VALORANT Challengers League, this merger could make SR one of the most popular teams in the region. While the team is best known for competing in the Riot Games FPS — most notably with their back-to-back Championship-winning Game Changers team — League of Legends is their biggest competitive title. Still, after middling results in their debut LCS year, SR has failed to build a significant fanbase in the space.

A huge new audience

During his recent grind to Platinum — starting, quite literally, from scratch — Ludwig collaborated with some of the biggest names in the space: Marc "Caedrel" Lamont, Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, Eugene "Pobelter" Park, Clayton "CaptainFlowers" Raines, and others appeared on his stream to guide and encourage him. Now, positioned as one of the biggest League of Legends streamers in North America, he’s set to bring a huge new audience to the debut of the LTA.

With Disguised set to debut in Tier 1 alongside the newly merged SR, Ludwig and Toast’s existing friendship — and burgeoning competitive rivalry — will help build even more hype as the scene evolves. Almost none of the original legends of the LCS remain in the competitive ecosystem today, and, as news like 100 Thieves’ planned exit from the end of the year continues to pile up, fans need news like this to hold onto. Tune into the LTA North Conference’s inaugural split on January 25th.

Moist x Shopify’s finalized 2025 LTA North roster:

Header Photo Credit: Moist Esports / Shopify Rebellion / Sheep Esports