It's clear that FNC can't return to their 2023 level of play without some changes. Ever since champs last year they've been in the mud, and haven't shown many signs of improvement. They failed to qualify for Madrid, looked mid in the regular season and just bombed out of Shanghai without winning a match. Even when they won EMEA the only thing that looked somewhat convincing about their whole playoffs run was the lower bracket final against FUT. They dropped a map against fucking Liquid. Then a Karmine Corp roster full of inexperienced rookies choked two massive leads against them, with FNC basically skirting by on experience differential. Then they got manhandled by Heretics. Then had one convincing game against FUT. Then Heretics choked a 2-0 lead in maps against them and once again lost to experience diff, all the while Leo and Alfajer were pulling generational deadlifts to bail them out constantly.
And it's not like we can say let them cook, give them time to improve. Because that's also what everyone else is doing. Heretics and FUT have the chance to massively level up at Shanghai, NAVI were already way better than FNC and have time off to work of themselves, VIT and KC are some of the most dangerous teams with time to cook their strat book, even ass teams like KOI and BBL were improving near the end of the season. The domestic competition is starting to leave FNC in the dust and there's a very real chance that FNC miss out on champs and honestly I don't think they deserve to go.
This roster needs changes to return to their status as the best team in the world. There's no 2 ways about it