Zekken's situation is kinda sad

It's kind of a bummer that even after being so good for like almost the entire reason, the second he messes up, people start calling him trash, asking for him to change roles, asking for him to be dropped.
It's the fate you suffer for being a player who plays for a popular franchise. There'll always be hate, from your own fans because they expect you to be on your A game the entire year as well as the opposition fans who are just waiting for him to slip.
As long as he was the underrated young talent, everyone was rooting for him. The second he proved himself to be one of the best duelist (which he still is btw) in the world, that too for Sentinels, people just started praying for his downfall.

Mind you this is a 19 year old who has been good even when his team was bot fragging, been the top performer in like 90% of his team's games while being nothing but positive about everyone around him. It's a bit insane how unforgiving the eSports scene is. Now I am not saying his recent performances are excusable. His Jett has been shaky and his operator skills have cost his team rounds but at the same time, I see Kaplan has some faults in this too. Why would you choose the map where your best player has to play on the agent he is weak at when you genuinely have other options. (Referencing to Lotus not being picked in Match 1 of Seoul).

Everyone wants to cheer for the underdog but switch the second that same underdog is a threat to their teams and is not an underdog anymore.

I think the most consistent duelists are the one who gives up giving plans/ideas. In SEN comms video zekken is tryna do too much his mind is crowded. This is just my take though

some of have been calling him bad all season so

Exactly man. I've seen this so many times with TenZ but he's used to it since C9 in CS, so at least it isn't that bad. But zekken is like 19 and probably never had to deal with this amount of hate before so it might kill his mental.

What sucks more is that if he doesn't regain his form for the remaining games we have in champs, he'll get hate till the new year, which I don't personally think he deserves.

welcome to reality, it's often darker grimier and full of horror

Personally I think tenz is the best player on the roster of sentinels but I have followed zekken as a player since before he was on xset and I agree it's really sad to see a player like him getting attacked by fans and haters. He's extremely talented but when every team you play against are just as good as you, it becomes hard to shine like he used to and so people don't see how good he really is. And if this team ever does undergo roster changes, zekken is definitely not the first person that I would think of switching on the team, if sentinels even needs roster changes.

His Raze is clearly better than his Jett and Neon. Same goes for PRX's Jingg (he plays Neon). It's the only reason I can think of these players struggling along with the team. Map pool in Shanghai and here are more of a Jett and Neon maps. Only Bind is a Raze map. He will be back with Split and Fracture.

You do know that when he won mvp in Madrid.. He got sponsored by razer for winning it with the viper v3 pro. And because of the sponsor, he ended up switching everything to razer(from just mouse to also keyboard, speed mousepad) which screwed his skill over. Not saying razer products are bad. It's just changing peripherals can affect your game. Before he was using the wooting kb nd artisan mousepad.

Zekken is the final evolution of any system duelist, he excels in structured team environments when the calls are good, and is selfless enough to stick to bad gameplans when the calls are bad, and not trying to pad his stats. Not even Aspas does that.

It's not a style that gets you recognized and subsequently get picked up by big teams, but it's a style you adopt once you've already been recognized by a team on the highest level or a team you trust to win with in the long run--to which there's a certain degree of honor to be had

he's one of the best duelists for the job when it comes to executing intricate gameplans at the highest level, I hope more people understand that, although maybe he should be more selfish when he feels like he the strats called aren't working, and become more of a difference maker--like aspas

Look at Fnatic, the team that won 2/3 trophy last year, "underperforming" and instantly being called to disband after Shanghai and Boaster hate. Like no one is safe bro. The second someone or a team underperform, the community will jump them. I if a team like Geng bombs out of Champs, people will instantly start targeting them.