T1 Dismantle RNG at Worlds 2022

Anyone who followed the LPL and the LCK this year knew that T1 were the big favorite against Royal Never Give Up in the quarterfinals of Worlds 2022. But few people could have predicted a 3-0 result in favor of the South Korean team.

In this match, we were able to witness just how strong a competitor can be relative to its opponent, even at this level. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok waited five years for a real opportunity to win another trophy.

In 2017 he lost the Grand Final against Samsung Galaxy (0-3). Now he is about to compete in the semifinals of Worlds 2022 against the strongest team in china, JD Gaming. Arguably, the winner of this match will win the entire tournament. And both teams probably know this. Their battle will be the true Grand Final.

How T1 beat RNG

The match between T1 and RNG ended very quickly. We were hoping for an epic five-maps battle, but T1 proved to be the masters of the end game. In two of the three games, the fight lasted around 40 minutes. Game two, in particular, was very tough for them. They were seven kills down and 5K gold. Not to mention the towers.

Then it got worse. T1 lost a tier-3 tower and an inhibitor. For almost 10 minutes, RNG sieged their base and kept them on their own part of the map. But T1 fought hard and managed to bring themselves back into the game. Thanks to a successful battle in which they killed four of RNG’s champions, they secured a Dragon and then the Barron. With these advantages, T1 simply gathered mid and finished the game.

The third game of the match was the most one-sided. Demoralized by what had happened in the first two games, RNG clearly didn’t have the patience to play in a calculated manner and chose to fight battles that should have been avoided.

Thanks to an excellent laning phase, T1 were ahead by several thousand gold and were able to quickly destroy important tier-1 towers. At this point, RNG’s only option was to split-push, but they were not allowed to do that.

At the 11-minute mark, the game was roughly even. But then, in just seven minutes, T1 got ahead thanks to multiple kills and then snowballed out of control. The game was practically lost before the 20-minute mark and the fans of RNG knew it. Nevertheless, both teams remained focused on the game until the inevitable end.

Header: T1