T1 are nothing without Faker

Recently, the world of esports was shocked by T1’s announcement regarding the health problems of the team’s most famous player, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. Like other esports athletes, Faker suffered an arm injury that will likely keep him away from training and playing at full capacity for quite a while.

We know this because this industry has had multiple top-level people with wrist injuries and none of them managed to recover in less than 3-6 months. In some cases, it took close to a year. And even when the player came back, he wasn’t as capable as before. The injury had a big impact on training intensity and LAN performance.

Just take a look at Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi from Dota 2, whose career over the past four years has been rough even though he won The International in 2017. The list is much longer, including players from games like CS:GO, Dota 2, and so on.

Some have claimed that Faker will be back to full strength in two weeks, but that’s not a realistic estimate. Maybe that’s what he would like to do because he’s a very ambitious gamer. But reality will likely force him to stop playing professionally until 2024.

GREATEST. OF. ALL. TIME. Even as a rookie.

The story and stats behind @T1LoL‘s @faker League debut and beyond.

📺: https://t.co/viOBViBBSa pic.twitter.com/6lNo9cJ9Ij

— Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) August 10, 2022

T1 without Faker

We’ve already seen T1 without Faker and it is not pretty. The team went from a 17 W – 1 L record in the Spring Split to a 6 W – 4 L record in the Summer Split. At this pace, T1 have small chances of Worlds 2023. They lost not only against Gen.G Esports (twice!) and KT Rolster (once), but even against DragonX, whose current record is 3 W – 7 L.

This defeat in a best-of-three match clearly indicates that T1 is now a shadow of its former self. Amidst all this mess, the team’s coach, Bae “Bengi” Seong-woong decided to quit. If Faker’s absence is only for a short while, why did he leave so soon?

After all, T1 are still ranked 3^rd in the league and have an identical record to two other teams: Dplus and Hanwha Life Esports. With Faker coming back in just two weeks, T1 could make a comeback and get a good result in the playoffs.

The problem here is that Faker’s promised return probably has more to do with investor confidence than with reality. And Bengi knows this. Without Faker, T1 cannot do anything. He’s more than 50% of the team’s strength and if his health doesn’t improve soon, 2023 will be another failed year for the club.

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