FunPlus Phoenix – The reigning world champion of League of Legends is currently experiencing a relatively poor performance in the LPL Summer 2020. They have only secured 5 wins and lost 5 matches, placing them in the lower half of the standings after more than half of the group stage.
Recently, the complete defeat with a score of 0-2 against the team sitting at the bottom of the standings – Rogue Warriors, has caused FPX fans to seemingly lose their patience, and they have begun directing their criticism towards the players, especially Khan – the most anticipated star of the Phoenix squad, who has delivered a very lackluster performance.
Notably, this is a match where Khan played the entire two games in place of Gimgoon, and while this player’s performance was not a total disaster, it certainly did not live up to the stature of a top-ranked world-class top laner.
After this match, the LPL fan community has lost its patience and begun directing their criticism towards Khan. Some believe Khan is the “bad omen” for FPX, as they list the number of matches this team has failed to win in the spring group stage with Khan on the roster, regardless of whether he played well or not.
Besides the “spiritual” factor, the technical issues also deserve discussion when mentioning Khan’s disconnection within the current FPX lineup. In the spring phase, Khan performed relatively well in the latter half of the season, but ultimately, FPX still did not achieve good results.
This is not only due to other opponents becoming stronger, but also because FPX has weakened itself. Their championship roster from the 2019 World Championship featured heavy carries like LWX and Doinb, while top laner Gimgoon played a role as a shield, using lane-controlling champions to balance the pressure on the top side of the map, supporting Tian to move freely.
Khan and Tian, however, do not have this synergy; fundamentally, Khan is the type of top laner who presses lanes, while Tian cannot adapt to this style of play. Moreover, the performance of Tian and Doinb has seriously declined, but ultimately, fans of this team may need to find a reasonable excuse to place blame, as aside from Khan, all the other names are veterans who helped FPX secure the world championship last year.
Additionally, Khan’s previous statements about “looking for a team that pays well for a comfortable retirement in the last two years before going to military service” have also been brought back into the spotlight, with many fans believing that this player only joined FPX for the money and does not genuinely intend to contribute to the team.
According to Chinese media, Khan is one of the highest-paid names at FPX with a salary of up to 2 million USD per year (approximately 46 billion VND), however, his contributions to this point have been very limited.