For SofM’s fans, his achievement as the runner-up at the 2020 World Championship while playing for Suning is an unforgettable memory. Alongside SofM’s brilliance, the other names in the Suning lineup also had a tournament of a lifetime with many top-notch plays. A standout moment was Huanfeng’s execution of the “Death’s Stage” right in the opponent’s base during the match where Suning defeated JDG.
It was expected that Huanfeng would “rise up” after a brilliant 2020 World Championship, but the career of this player fell into a very difficult situation. After parting ways with Weibo Gaming (the rebranded Suning), Huanfeng drifted to a lower-tier LPL team, ThunderTalk Gaming (TT). Here, he had to switch to playing Support before leaving the team and becoming a free agent at the end of the 2023 season. Currently, Huanfeng is unemployed and has yet to find a new home.
Recently, Huanfeng spoke out about the scandals of TT, attracting the attention of the online community. Specifically, Huanfeng’s switch to the Support position was due to pressure from the TT coaching staff. The reason stemmed from Huanfeng having a salary that was too high for TT, so moving him to Support was a way to alleviate the financial burden.
However, this immediately backfired as TT went from being playoff contenders to finishing 13th in the 2023 LPL Summer Split. As a result, this team continued to face significant financial issues even after forcing Huanfeng to play Support. Ultimately, Huanfeng was released from his contract with TT at the end of the 2023 season, despite not performing poorly. As of now, Huanfeng still hasn’t found a new team, even though he is considered a decent Marksman in the LPL.
Not only did Huanfeng face his own issues, but he also accused TT of treating his teammate YaoYao extremely poorly. Specifically, when TT began to adopt cats, YaoYao started experiencing continuous coughing and serious health declines. Upon seeing a doctor, it was revealed that YaoYao had pneumonia, and the cause was related to the cats. YaoYao’s health deteriorated to the point where he could not live at the TT headquarters and had to move to play for the youth team.
At the time of the 2023 Spring Split, TT appeared to be a very troublesome team with quality players like Huanfeng, Ucal, Hoya… They had secured 8th place in the group stage and earned a playoff spot. However, the management of TT’s oppressive and poor treatment of their players led to the team’s performance declining in subsequent seasons. It’s a pity that talents like Huanfeng and YaoYao could not further develop simply due to choosing the wrong career path.