The most unsuccessful manager in LPL history emerges, with a decade-long career without a championship, losing the foundational player and ruining his own future.

Greetings to all LPL fans and League of Legends summoners, this is Tianxia Game Review.

The entire S15 season of LPL has wrapped up, and after three stages plus the qualifiers, four teams have secured their spots in the World Championship, while the rest are gearing up for S16.

During this period, a rumor surfaced about a manager leaving, connected to LNG.

Latest LPL news: LNG’s manager is set to depart.

An LPL insider revealed that after LNG’s failure this year, manager Zuo Wu will leave, and Wan Lei will take over. Many viewers gave sharp critiques, saying these two managers are like hidden talents but seem equally mediocre, with their transfer decisions falling far behind Guo Hao’s.

However, upon closer analysis, Zuo Wu’s transfer mistakes are more obvious. Wan Lei’s biggest fault was letting go of Left Hand, which caused JDG to miss a crucial championship window, wasted a year of Ruler’s prime, saw Yagao’s performance suddenly decline, and even triggered conflicts among Korean players in the team.

Regarding Zuo Wu, last year’s transfer window saw him competing with JDG for the Scout + Peyz duo. Ultimately, JDG’s owner chose to pay more, so Zuo Wu settled for signing Hai Chao and Photic as a double-C carry, which led LNG into a downward spiral.

This duo inside the team was increasingly problematic. Photic had already shown in previous seasons that his ceiling was only mid-tier with little ambition. The key issue was Hai Chao, the mid laner, who was not cheap and hailed by fans as a new hope for LPL mids, but performed terribly, becoming one of the main reasons LNG completely collapsed.

The LPL’s most failed manager, with multiple absurd decisions.

LNG later tried to improve their ranking by swapping players but saw no significant progress, continuing their decline. Zuo Wu became one of the biggest casualties of LNG’s failure. As team manager, poor results were directly linked to transfer decisions. LNG spent a lot, at least above mid-tier in LPL, and such a disastrous defeat was unacceptable.

Besides LNG’s poor results, another reason for Zuo Wu’s departure must be mentioned: Tarzan. This player, once abandoned by Zuo Wu and LNG, was last year named the best Korean import, and this year led AL to win the second split and qualify for Worlds in the third.

Tarzan was once the core of LNG’s roster, but after a loyalty incident that year, LNG decisively cut ties with him, leaving him without competition for a long time. Later, he got the chance to join WBG and helped them reach Worlds.

Looking further back, internal conflicts have existed in LNG since very early on. Saint Gunner was also a victim of team infighting. As a Snake veteran, he continued working with Zuo Wu after Snake became LNG, but was benched by Chenlun17 and eventually left for EDG, where he won the World Championship.

A decade-long career without a title, Zuo Wu’s utter failure.

In my opinion, losing core players like Saint Gunner and Tarzan, who then achieved success elsewhere, is a bitter reality that neither Zuo Wu nor the club could accept. Later, during Ale’s time at LNG, more internal conflicts arose, including the outrageous PandaC incident. After finally signing Scout and getting back on track, loyalty issues struck again at Worlds.

Going even further back to the Snake era, Zuo Wu was involved in signing OHQ, a transfer no one favored. The result was poor performance, and OHQ became one of the worst Korean imports in LPL history.

In summary, Zuo Wu’s career since entering the LPL in 2015 has never yielded a championship nor a standout performance on the world stage. The most memorable moments for fans remain the early Snake days—the dark horse team with Saint Gunner, Crystal, the legendary one-fish-four-kills, the pentakill Draven, and BO10 series. The passionate early Zuo Wu left a deep impression, but now those days are just history.

Editor’s note

I believe LNG’s closest shot at success was in S13, but they were crushed by T1 in a single match, exposing internal issues. After abandoning Tarzan, they entered a steep decline. From today’s perspective, LNG’s team-building philosophy and playstyle have major flaws. Their traditional Korean-style slow play doesn’t fit the current era, and the team’s instability ultimately led to failure.