After days of anticipation, the two powerful teams of LCK and the world of League of Legends, Gen.G and T1, have finally made their debut in the LCK Summer 2024 tournament. Both teams had the same result of 2-0, but they displayed somewhat contrasting play styles. While Gen.G completely dominated their opponent in both games, T1 took a more relaxed approach. However, Faker and his teammates left the audience feeling somewhat uneasy, especially during moments in the match where T1 members made unnecessary mistakes.
However, there is one aspect of T1 that has persisted for a long time and continues in the opening match of LCK Summer 2024. That is T1’s decision to allow Gumayusi to play Senna—a champion classified as a Support Marksman that requires many factors to unleash its potential. For those who may not know, since the start of LCK Spring 2024 until now, Gumayusi has played Senna in 23 matches—the highest among all champions he has used this year—with a win rate of 82.6%.
Notably, Gumayusi has never been a “supportive” Marksman. One could even argue that the AD carry born in 2002 is among the best in the world today. Therefore, right after T1 picked Senna for Gumayusi in game one, fans voiced their frustration: “Why do we continue to let the most stable player on the team use Senna?”.
However, it is also a reality that currently, T1 is facing many challenges from both objective and subjective reasons. Moreover, this is just the opening phase of the Summer 2024 tournament, and this week, T1 will clash with their arch-rival Gen.G. The T1 players likely do not want to reveal their strategies too early.
Nevertheless, T1 is indeed wasting Gumayusi’s talent to some extent. He only truly steps into a “carry” role when T1 is in dire straits and the match has nearly slipped out of control. But this situation is not beneficial for either T1 or Gumayusi, especially when opponents like Gen.G and Bilibili Gaming… have shown how well they utilize their Marksmen, even with many other stars on their teams.