Following the semifinals of the League of Legends S15 World Championship, the LPL region is no longer in the picture this year, but the grand final remains exciting. Faker has made it to the final again, and the challenger is KT, a team long underestimated. BDD, who has persevered through ten years of challenges, could become a legend by following in his idol’s footsteps—truly a remarkable tale in LOL history.

Looking back at the entire tournament, among the four LPL teams, some exceeded expectations while others were disappointing. AL was the only team that fought evenly with T1 but fell at the quarterfinals, which was truly unfortunate. As for BLG, they performed terribly, unable to recover despite having the best seed, exiting at the round of 16 with a showing worse than 17th-ranked IG. Meanwhile, Top Esports performed decently, meeting expectations.

As the only LPL semifinalist, Top Esports was swept by KT and GEN in the Swiss stage, and then completely defeated by T1 in the semifinals without winning a single game. Their international performance was clearly disappointing. During the recent off-season, forums have been flooded with criticism of Kanavi, accusing him of being aggressive against G2 but timid against T1. This double-faced behavior caused Kanavi’s reputation to plummet, with “loyalty to the country” becoming a trending phrase.

While many questioned Kanavi, a special interview video shared on Bilibili added fuel to the fire around his already poor public image. Let’s see what Kanavi said: when asked about discussions before the semifinals against T1, Kanavi replied that everyone really wanted to win since they had lost to T1 before, so the desire to win was strong, but losing was still regrettable.

When asked how it felt playing against T1, Kanavi simply said: “Each of them played very well.” Then he told his teammates: “It’s been tough getting this far; I hope everyone has a good future.” Finally, Kanavi apologized to all fans. However, after the interview video was released, the comments and bullet chats mocked Kanavi’s loyalty, with some extreme viewers even labeling him a mole.

Why did Kanavi underperform against LCK teams? Another online revelation might explain it. A netizen uncovered chat logs from when Kanavi played for JDG two years ago, where Blue Lotus complained about Kanavi. In the chat, Blue Lotus revealed that the reason he respected Kanavi so much was because conditions like no pressure and no psychological manipulation (PUA) were explicitly written into Kanavi’s contract.

Kanavi negotiated with Blue Lotus to buy a 200,000 yuan mattress, claiming the bed was too hard and affected his performance. Clearly, Kanavi’s professional attitude was problematic—he couldn’t handle pressure, acting like a spoiled star player. Like the former “little cream” player, teammates had to pamper him to play well. Although his individual skill wasn’t bad, needing to be coddled during big matches inevitably causes issues.

Even Doran criticized Kanavi during a livestream, saying that when he was a trainee, he thought Kanavi played poorly. Doran said Kanavi’s top lane was okay, but his jungle was weak. One night before sleep, Kanavi claimed he was better than Tarzan, which made Doran think he was out of his mind. Even Doran’s criticism is hard to ignore, but Kanavi’s league performance is indeed solid.

Conclusion:

A player who can’t handle pressure and whose play falters against LCK teams seems understandable. Kanavi’s time at JDG shows he was spoiled by Blue Lotus, with demands always met—even no pressure clauses in contracts. How could coaches effectively review matches and discipline him to fix his problems under such conditions?

So, what do you think about Kanavi’s professional attitude?

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