In the match on May 29th, which was also the MSI 2022 finals, T1 lost to Royal Never Give Up. This continued the winless streak for one of the most successful teams in the League of Legends scene. Furthermore, this championship helped RNG rise in the number of titles at the MSI tournament. Prior to this, the “Royal Legion” had an equal number of MSI championships with T1, with a total of 2 titles. Additionally, the MSI 2022 championship also established RNG’s record of 100% victory at MSI, as they have won the cup every time they participated.
However, for T1, not only the audience but even T1’s coach – Polt seems to be unconvinced by RNG’s victory. Specifically, in a post-match interview after the loss to RNG in the MSI 2022 finals, the T1 coach stated that his team lost due to… luck. He expressed: “The team that picks first will always choose the Blue side and win. We also prepared strategies for the Red side, but it probably wasn’t enough. I think that’s the reason we lost: because we couldn’t play on the Blue side for 3 games.”
However, this statement from Coach Polt was sharply countered, and the rebuttal came from RNG’s Support Ming. He candidly stated: “Using that reasoning to justify the loss is acceptable. But did they lose because of a coin toss? Didn’t they themselves assert before the coin toss that they would beat us 3-0, and then after the coin toss claim they would beat us 3-1? So why are they bringing that up now?”
Indeed, in the recent finals, teams choosing the Blue side all secured victories. However, another factor is that in the decisive game, the overly rigid ban-pick strategy was the most significant reason for T1’s players’ failure. Just the fact that Keria – a Support who often ganks and controls the map had to play a passive champion like Yuumi was enough of a drawback in T1’s draft strategy.
Regardless, RNG won deservedly. As for T1, they need to quickly draw lessons from this experience to make a comeback soon, starting with the LCK Summer 2022 and then the upcoming World Championship 2022.