Ahead of the start of the 2020 LCS Summer Split, League of Legends fans were met with a rather “surprising” piece of news, as Evil Geniuses’ top laner – Huni, confirmed that he would be playing for the Evil Geniuses Academy team in the lower-tier league of the LCS during the summer season.
This can be seen as a significant step back in the career of the star who was once expected to become a top player in the world like Huni. In fact, it is true that Huni has not maintained a good performance in the Spring Split, which led to his departure from Dignitas, despite having just signed a contract worth $2.3 million with the team earlier this year.
However, Huni not being able to play on EG’s main roster is primarily due to rule issues rather than performance factors.
EG can be described as a “United Nations” team, with 6 players from 5 different nationalities, and only Zeyzal is the “local” player. However, both Svenskeren (Denmark) and Kumo (China) have qualified to be domestic players due to their lengthy participation in professional North American League of Legends tournaments, so currently, EG actually has 3 foreign players: Jiizuke, Bang, and Huni.
LCS rules only allow teams to register a maximum of 2 foreign players in the starting lineup, and given the performance in the Spring Split, Bang and Jiizuke will naturally be prioritized.
Huni himself has only played in North America for 3 and a half years (in 2016, 2018, 2019, and the first half of 2020), so he does not qualify to be a domestic player in this region. It is likely that Huni will have to play in the Academy tier for a while longer to qualify as a domestic player before he can join Evil Geniuses’ main roster.
Thus, it can be seen that pushing Huni down to EG’s Academy team is an unfortunate move, rather than due to him dropping in performance to a disastrous level. However, this move still shows that Huni’s influence is no longer what it used to be.
From being one of the most expensive stars in the LCS with a transfer fee of over $2 million, Huni now cannot even compete for a foreign player slot with Jiizuke (not counting Bang, as the former SKT AD carry is EG’s number one star – an irreplaceable position).
In response to the media, Huni also stated that he is ready to play for the Academy Team this season, to maintain his performance and wait for the opportunity to play for the main roster, in case Jiizuke or Bang drops heavily in performance and EG is forced to make changes in the lineup.