T1 are known to be a League of Legends team that heavily relies on one man: Faker. If he’s in great shape, they do well. If not, they do poorly.
Luckily for T1, Faker was in great shape last year at Worlds and that allowed them to win another trophy after seven years of failures. Then, in LCK Spring, T1 finished the group stage in 2nd place with a record of 15 W – 3 L and almost won the playoffs against Gen.G Esports.
But, despite leading 2 – 1 in the Grand Final, they were defeated 2 – 3. This is a very powerful opponent and they’ve been struggling against Gen.G for several years.
T1 has now lost four consecutive Grand Finals against them in the LCK, which is a source of agony for their fans.
At MSI 2024, T1 finished 3rd after failing to beat Bilibili Gaming in the lower bracket Final. The same team had defeated them in the upper bracket Semifinals. The winner of the tournament was once again Gen.G Esports, who seem to be headed toward a fully deserved Worlds trophy this season. But that doesn’t mean T1 have no hope of winning LCK Summer.
T1’s Chances
[2024 LCK Summer T1 Roster]
𝘽𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙙: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙑𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮#T1WIN #T1Fighting pic.twitter.com/RdGwPyHkEv
— T1 LoL (@T1LoL) June 7, 2024
T1 clearly have a major weakness against Gen.G Esports. Against every other opponent, they tend to win without even losing games. In the Spring split, this was the case versus Brion, Dplus, DRX, FearX, and Freecs. In each case, we’re talking about two best-of-three matches.
KT Rolster and Nongshim RedForce lost both matches against T1 but managed to win a game in one of them.
Hanwha Life Esports lost one match against them (0 – 2) but won the other. And finally, Gen.G won both of their matches against T1, proving that they’re not beating them in some lucky manner but in a consistent way because they truly understand their strategies.
The good news for T1 is that they only need to figure out how to stop losing against a single opponent in South Korea. If they manage to discover Gen.G’s secret decision-making process, their chances of winning the Summer split are high. But even if they don’t, they will still finish the split 2nd or 3rd and qualify for Worlds 2024.
For Faker, anything less than a victory is a defeat. His teammates, no doubt, feel the same. This is not a roster that was put together at the start of the new season. This T1 roster has been competing together since the end of 2020. As for Faker, he’s been here since December 2014!
Header: T1