A pro League player was fined his salary for forgetting smite

An unusual and unfortunate situation mistake by Victory Five jungler Peng “pzx” Zhan-Xiang in the Chinese LPL resulted in a bad loss in the team’s most recent match against Suning. The young jungler forgot to pick smite in the first match of the series, which ultimately had major consequences on Summoner’s Rift.

Without the ability to smite camps, pzx fell behind in the early game and couldn’t help secure the most important neutral objectives throughout the game. The aftermath of the situation has now resulted in pzx being fined one month’s salary and issued a warning from the organization. 

pzx was playing Viego in the game and had selected teleport instead of the required smite summoner spell. According to league rules, V5 was not allowed to remake the game and pzx had to play out the match at a big disadvantage. 

The reason for the mistake was reportedly that pzx had played with teleport when he was playing solo on the tournament realm account prior to the official match. When hitting champion select against Suning, the error wasn’t spotted before it was too late. As a young and inexperienced jungler on the professional stage, mistakes happen, but this one was enormous and brought severe consequences.

V5 ended up losing the first game when pzx didn’t have smite before surprisingly bouncing back in the second game. In the deciding game, V5 wasn’t strong enough to take home the victory and ended up absorbing another loss. This leaves V5 without any match wins this split, and the team now sits at an 0-13 overall record. 

V5 is already out of playoff contention but will still be looking to secure a win or two before the 2021 LPL Summer regular split concludes next week.   

Who plays for Victory Five in the LPL?

V5 showcased great play last year by almost breaking into the top 4 of the LPL. In 2021, the results have been lackluster and it’s looking to be even worse in the second half of the season after the team go of some of its best players. This leaves V5 with a young squad that is currently struggling to capture momentum in the most competitive League of Legends competition in the world. 

The V5 LPL roster is: 

• Top – Huang “Aliez” Hao
• Jungle – Peng “pzx” Zhan-Xiang / Liao “JugGod” Zhi-Hui
• Mid – Chen “Uniboy” Chang-Chu
• Bot – Zou “Kepler” Jia-Le 
• Support – Peng “Reheal” Jun-Jie / Zhang “ZYF” Yi-Fan