As a Lane Kha'Zix main: Will he ever see love again?

Quick background to have myself a leg to stand on here. I'm NA's KhaZix Bot, have been for six years and I've mained Kha for seven (since release). I'm currently ranked 4th highest mastery in NA and 20th in the world. I'm not claiming to be the best at anything. I'm not. I am, however, the most experienced lane Kha'Zix player in North America and possibly the world (though that part I'm not too certain of). I was the first and only Kha'Zix top "expert" of Season 8 and the second Kha Mid "expert" of Season 8.

That out of the way, let's get to the point.

Kha'Zix was designed to be a solo laner and a jungler. That's not an opinion, that's a fact as noted in his original champion spotlight. If you want to hear Phreak talk about how to kill Shen in top lane or whatever, go check it out.

In Season 2, Kha got off to a good start in top lane and jungle. He was healthy in both roles, if not a little on the weaker side (or at least underappreciated). In top he would be played as a bruiser or an assassin. In jungle, he was mostly limited to the assassin build.

Now, if you played during Season 3, you know what happens next. Kha mid takes off, dominated solo queue and pro play, Alex Ich kills Malzahar jungle or something, and Kha'Zix gets reworked. This is when things start to fall apart for solo lane Kha'Zix.

Kha mid gets nerfed. His W no longer procs his passive and can no longer be fired in the air. The way his Q damage is calculated is also changed, but that happens a dozen times over the next five seasons, so I'm not even going to get into that. Just know that isolation became less accessible.

Through the last six years now, I've always found a way to make lane Kha work. Season 4 gad the brief resurgence of Kha mid with Elder Lizard (the ability burn jungle item). With Season 5 and 6 came the new jungle items and with it, smite mid Kha to take advantage of the Warrior Enchantment's high damage to gold value and 10 flat pen. Every season, solo lane Kha'Zix got weaker, and now it's irrelevant.

Sorry to say it, Krusaders, but Khamet top (for all intents and purposes, the last shred of lane Kha'Zix's existence) is rocking like a 40% winrate. Love it as much as the next guy, but it's a patchwork fix to a issue that never should have come this far.

In a time where care is taken to preserve playstyles when a champion is changed, it's crazy to see how heavily Kha'Zix has been discriminated against by comparison. Shaco was preserved in every role he was played in (and made better in just about all of them). Same for Warwick and Akali. Rengar top was allowed to persist through all of his changes. Taliyah was allowed to stay in jungle even after changes were made to return her to mid.

So why was Kha so different? What are you so afraid of?

Beyond this, there's to constant frustration of changes hurting lane Kha'Zix when he wasn't part of the problem that demanded those changes as a solution. Shojin Kha with Transcendence was very strong, but Jax and Renekton got Shojin removed. Kha'Zix already had an atrocious matchup against Garen in top lane, but then his ability to cancel Garen's ult (high level counterplay that is almost impossible without practice and doesn't even consume the cooldown) was removed. Why? Was that really necessary? Again obviously that change wasn't to stop Kha'Zix specifically from outplaying Garen, but it was a change that, again, had no regard for the health of lane Kha'Zix.

Now I understand that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I get that. I don't expect items like Shojin and Brutalizer to stay in the game just because lane Kha needs them to be playable. However, I just want lane Kha'Zix to see the same fair treatment that Support Shaco, Top Akali, and most other reworks have seen.

All that in mind, I'm still going to play it either way. Nothing is going to change there. It would be nice to not have to explain how it works to every team in solo queue to stop them from trolling me over the pick, though.