After a rough season, Huni is allowed to start looking for other options in terms of a team for the summer split. This comes after signing a massive deal during the offseason with Dignitas who failed to make the playoffs. While there were many problems and reasons why Dig did not make the playoffs, one of the standout reasons was their highest-paid player, Huni, underperformed in a big way. Now the question is, what is in Huni’s future?
Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon is one of the most storied top laners in the history of professional League of Legends. Huni exploded onto the EULCS scene in season five. He won the spring split with Fnatic in that season and finished 3rd-4th at MSI. The legendary team was just getting warmed up as they went on the record run in summer, 18-0. Fnatic then won the summer split and the team went on to make the semifinals at worlds.
Huni, alongside the jungler Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin, were receiving the lion’s share of the praise for all this winning. Huni was dominant in lane, playing a hyper-aggressive, constantly in your face, bone-crushing style from minute one to game’s end. He was enabled by the dominance of Reignover, who was always there to help Huni whether by counter-ganking top, or creating pressure elsewhere on the map to draw the enemy jungler away from the toplane.
Huni was also on the Immortals team that won 17 of 18 games in the spring of season six. This was the record for best regular season in NALCS history. This record still stands and has only been tied by TSM and C9. Huni has also made Worlds with three separate teams. These teams being Fnatic, SK Telecom T1 (now T1) and Clutch Gaming. That’s the SK Telecom T1 who are three-time champions. The year Huni played they won MSI and made the finals at worlds, only to fall short to Samsung Gaming.
All this shows that Huni is capable of greatness. At times he’s been the best in his league, at others on the best team in the world. But now, after signing a $2.3 Million contract, he’s missed the LCS playoffs and has been allowed to explore his options.
Photo Via gol.gg
In multiple metrics Huni was at the bottom of the table for starting top laners. Huni was 9th in KDA, 8th in GD@15, 10th in CSD@15, 10th in FB%, and only generated 2 solo kills. Despite all this Huni was 3rd in CS%P15 (Average Creep Score % Post 15) and 4th in GOLD%.
This shows that even though Huni was having such a consistently weak early game the team was still investing in him more than the average top laner. The team was still giving him resources expecting him to make a big impact in the mid to late game.
Huni clearly is not performing to the level expected of him. Doth he and DIG are looking to make a change. Unfortunately for both, Huni likely has nowhere to go.
Photo Via Lolesports
Look at the rest of the teams’ top laners. Cloud9, 100T, and TSM have the first, second, and third all-pro top laners respectively and are very unlikely to pick up Huni. As for the other playoff teams Golden Guardians and EG seem the most likely teams acquire him. EG does not play around top often and Kumo seems to be finding his footing as a weak side player. Flyquest, despite V1per struggling, seem to have found success with Solo. Outside of the playoffs teams TL is almost certainly not going to part ways with Impact. Immortals and CLG might be inclined to make some changes, but Huni would honestly only be a side-grade for either team. Also, he likely comes with a large increase in overhead. If he wants to stay in the LCS he’ll likely have to slide into Academy and prove he deserves a starting spot.
Given this information Huni’s most likely to make a transition to a team in a different region. In the LEC the teams most likely to look for a replacement would be VIT, SK, and XL, to replace Cabochard, Sacre, and Expect respectively. This would most likely come with a large pay cut. As for the LCK, if he’s willing to, he could join a team as a sub, or teams like HLE or Griffin might be looking to make a change.
Another option would be to move to China and play as an alternate for a lower-tier squad with enough money and guts to take a gamble on him returning to form. The hyper-aggressive, always fighting LPL would be a good fit for Huni’s playstyle, but it is unclear whether he’d be willing to move to the country and adapt to the culture.
Overall, Huni is short on options. It’s highly unlikely that he will find another massive contract like the one he signed with DIG before the spring split began. However, if he’s willing to make some sacrifices he’ll likely be able to find another team.
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