The League of Legends S15 season has ended, and the LPL’s yearly results were quite poor. Yet, the music side is thriving. Taibo’s popular track “Sudden Gyroscope” recently exceeded 28 million streams, surpassing the S8 theme "Rise" to become the third most played LoL song. Within a week, it’s expected to overtake K/DA and move up to second place on the leaderboard.

First place is out of reach for sure, as "Lonely Swimmer" has already amassed 47 million plays, a huge gap. It must be said, this song is truly catchy. Most World Championship anthems are listened to once or twice and then forgotten, but "Gyroscope" feels fresh every time. Whenever Taibo loses a match, thousands of viewers revisit the song. Its total plays might well surpass 30 million soon.

Zhu Kai invests 2 million into youth training

The biggest issue in the LPL right now is the gap between generations, with fewer and fewer new players emerging. If this continues, once veterans like Rookie and Xiaohu retire, the LPL’s future looks bleak. Recently, coach Zhu Kai declared on stream his plan to save the LPL by collaborating with Hanyi to establish a youth training program. Each will invest 1.5 to 2 million to nurture promising newcomers and supply talent to the LPL.

Regardless of whether it succeeds, Zhu Kai’s intention is commendable. The LPL faces a severe talent shortage, and if he can replicate PDD’s “Huangpu Military Academy” model to develop top-tier players, it would be a huge contribution. However, Zhu Kai often talks big, so it’s uncertain if he will follow through. He might just be boasting and could back out when it comes to actually investing money.

Breathing reveals reason for unemployment

After major changes to the LPL transfer rules, many top players chose to take a break, including Breathing. Recently, he went live and shared some inside info: leaving his team wasn’t his choice but due to WBG’s internal politics. Also, he didn’t intend to rest; he had an agreement to play with ELK, but things went wrong when IG refused ELK, which blocked Breathing from joining IG as well.

Besides IG, Breathing also talked with LNG, but negotiations fell through. So his break was forced. Honestly, his laning skills are still solid, but in matches, he often tries to flank, which sometimes leaves his teammates vulnerable when the top lane hasn’t positioned yet. The top lane scene in LPL is also somewhat lacking new talent, so there’s a good chance Breathing could return in the next two transfer windows.

MLXG reveals Uzi’s imminent return to streaming

Uzi, a retired LPL superstar, welcomed his second child on the last day of last year. Now with both son and daughter, his family life is enviably happy. Many LPL players left congratulatory messages on Uzi’s Weibo. Recently, MLXG announced during a stream that Uzi will resume streaming in 1-2 months, likely on a new platform, probably the same one as Xiangguo and others.

With his second child born, Uzi definitely needs to earn for the family. His last stream was in late April 2025, so he’s been off for over half a year. The break was mainly to focus on family. During the winter transfer period, Uzi was playing ranked games intensely, making fans think he might return professionally. It seems he still has a strong urge to play LoL. If he’s going to play anyway, streaming might as well be a way to make some income.

Conclusion:

If Zhu Kai manages to get the youth training program off the ground, his reputation could improve significantly. But it’s still just a plan, not yet implemented, and he might find an excuse to abandon it. As a top-tier top laner, Breathing would definitely have job offers from mid-to-low tier teams, but he likely wants to join a team with a shot at Worlds. Unfortunately, such options are very limited.

So, what do you think? Can Zhu Kai successfully develop the youth training program?

Feel free to leave your thoughts and join the discussion!