In their journey toward the championship at the 2023 World Championship (Worlds), Faker and his teammates faced a tremendous challenge known as “the 4 LPL teams.” Indeed, this is the first time in Worlds history that a team from one of the two LCK regions – LPL – had to compete against all four representatives from the other region. Not to mention, the matches were all “do or die” since T1 had to defeat BLG to officially secure a spot in the Quarterfinals. After that, they had to beat the remaining 3 teams to become champions.
However, T1 also displayed exceptional strength and flawless performance in their matches against the LPL representatives. Even though the LPL sent 4 extremely strong representatives, all that the LPL teams managed to achieve against T1 was a single win by JD Gaming against T1 in the Semifinals. Despite facing some difficulties, T1 always knew how to secure victory in the end. In fact, T1 didn’t even have the “opportunity” to lose in order to choose sides in the finals.
However, while reviewing the matches from Worlds 2023 on his stream, Faker expressed immense respect for JDG players in particular and LPL in general. Faker stated: “LPL players have such good mentality. JDG was defeated by T1, but 369 showed no signs of disappointment. He even smiled in front of the camera. If I lost, I couldn’t do that. This is something special about them that’s worth learning from.”
Indeed, after the match between T1 and JDG ended, the LPL players maintained a positive attitude as the T1 stars came over to shake hands. However, behind the scenes, several JDG players clearly showed their disappointment, with Missing even shedding tears. Therefore, JDG’s professionalism despite suffering a shocking defeat is commendable.
Faker himself also showed respect for his opponents. In a match, there will always be a winner and a loser. But LPL players can take pride, as they have tried their best, simply running into a T1 that was too strong at that moment.