Another season of World Championship has come to an end and the new champion of the League of Legends scene is DRX. This marks an unprecedented achievement in the history of LoL as a team from the regional qualifiers can advance through the Play-In stage to ultimately become champions. Moreover, DRX did not have any superstar players and was considered the least favored representative from the LCK before the tournament began.
DRX’s victory also means defeat for T1. Thus, after a half-decade return to the finals of a World Championship, Faker once again misses the chance for a fourth World Championship title in his career. Faker was also one of the players with the worst performance in the finals. In the games that T1 lost, Faker contributed almost nothing.
However, the performance of the players was not the main reason for T1’s defeat. In fact, Faker had shining moments using his preferred champions. According to many fans, T1 lost due to their stubbornness in the banning and picking phase as well as their strategy.
In the games where T1 lost, they allowed DRX to have very favorable champions. Specifically, Aatrox is always considered a very strong champion at the moment, yet T1 made no efforts to ban this pick. Kingen used Aatrox in the two most important games of the finals and completely dominated Zeus. The next name is Azir in the hands of Zeka. The young player from DRX also used Azir in two consecutive games and played a significant role in destroying T1.
Next, there is the choice of Gwen for Zeus in game 5. This is a champion that Zeus is comfortable with, but Gwen has nearly disappeared from the World Championship meta and was only used twice (including the finals). Not to mention, the performance of T1’s top lane was not really good, causing Gwen to suffer even more against Aatrox.
This is not the first time T1 has shown passivity in the banning and picking phase. Throughout the 2022 World Championship, Coach Bengi brought fresh and unique strategies. The duo of Gumayusi – Keria themselves are among the players who used the most champions. However, in the match against DRX, the critical weakness in the banning and picking phase harmed T1 once again. But perhaps, this time, the fault does not lie with Coach Bengi anymore, but rather with the T1 players themselves who have limited their own champion pool and strategy.