It was still a familiar scenario known as “early season struggles,” produced and staged by the reigning LCK champions T1. Faker and his teammates entered their third match of LCK Summer 2020 against Afreeca Freecs – a team currently on a high streak with two consecutive wins.
The events in the first game truly made the fans of the 9-time LCK champions feel their hearts racing. T1 was easily taken down due to some rather silly mistakes from the bottom lane duo Teddy – Effort. But fortunately, Effort redeemed himself in game 2 before Faker turned on “demon mode” to finish off Afreeca after 3 games.
T1’s sleepy performances in the group stage, especially at the beginning of the season, have become quite familiar, which is why, despite taking the lead 1-0, AF remained quite cautious in the subsequent games.
The loss in game 1 primarily stemmed from the poor movements of Effort and Teddy; however, when this duo started to regain their spirits, AF soon felt what a nightmare was. T1 responded to the defeat in the first game with a dominant performance in game 2, nearly achieving a “perfect victory” if Effort hadn’t tanked the turret too much in the final moments of the match.
Moving to game 3, it was team captain Faker’s turn to shine with an S+ performance on Azir. Not only did he excel in his laning phase, but the Demon King also left fans in awe with his incredibly precise combos and no less than two spectacular escapes from Afreeca’s 2-man and 3-man ganks.
And on a day when Faker reached his peak performance, T1’s opponents seemed to know their fate in advance. Afreeca was quickly obliterated in the next two games and suffered a final defeat with a score of 1-2.
Nevertheless, T1’s fans still felt uneasy as they had to endure extremely tense moments. In fact, Korean fans even agreed with the notion that if the LCK adopted a Bo1 format, T1 would likely be in the relegation battle due to their tradition of coming back and “giving away” the first game to their opponents.