If you remember, during the spring season, T1 won the LCK without losing a single match, creating an unprecedented record in the history of this tournament. However, when entering the summer tournament, T1 could no longer maintain that unbeaten form as they lost to KDF. Additionally, watching T1 play at this point, we can no longer be certain that they will win as before.
A prime example is the match against BRO yesterday when T1 almost lost a crucial team fight, allowing all the advantages they had built up to vanish. Remember that T1 had already lost game 1 against BRO; if they lost this team fight, their chances of losing overall would not be small at all. Fortunately, Faker shone just in time with a “1 vs 4” play so spectacular that his teammate Zeus had to praise him profusely in the post-match interview.
Question: At the 28th minute, there was an unfavorable team fight for T1 when Gumayusi was caught first. Can you explain why you still won this situation?
T1 Zeus: Our plan was to slowly pressure the tower, but we didn’t expect them to initiate the fight early and take down Aphelios. Fortunately, Faker had a successful 1 vs 4 situation, taking down 2 enemies in the backline and splitting the enemy team. If not, we could have lost to BRO.
Indeed, if we look at the situation of the match at that time, we can understand BRO as they had to find a way to initiate a sudden fight to seek victory. With T1 having the advantage in gold, items, and Baron buff, if nothing was done, BRO would be “suffocated” in the literal sense.
Therefore, the situation of attacking Gumayusi was extremely accurate on BRO’s part. However, they did not account for Faker playing exceptionally well in the subsequent situation when he calmly moved to the backline and attacked BRO’s key players. Without any healing reduction items, Faker could withstand for an extremely long time in the fight with Sylas’s Crown and the Conqueror rune. In fact, he even took down 2 enemies, split BRO’s formation, and rendered all their efforts meaningless.
The victory against BRO has temporarily helped T1 rise to the top of the LCK Summer 2022 standings and created pressure to win for Gen.G. However, Gen.G only had to face a team currently sitting at the bottom, HLE, so their victory was already predicted beforehand.