There’s not much left to say about T1’s defeat against Gen.G last weekend, during both teams’ debut in the LCK Summer 2024. In that match, Gen.G won simply because they outperformed their opponent in every aspect, from gameplay mentality, personnel quality to strategy. T1 themselves showed no signs of having any chance to win throughout the two games. They managed to maintain a balanced game state for just over ten brief minutes before Gen.G surged ahead and secured victory.
In the press conference, Gumayusi shared the most crucial factor that helped Gen.G secure victory over T1. The AD Carry born in 2002 admitted: “They (Gen.G) really neutralized us from the draft phase. All they needed to do was ban 2 – 4 of my bot lane champions, and I knew the game was likely over.”
Gumayusi’s revelation also highlights one thing: T1 is currently adapting too slowly to the various meta and strategies of their opponents. They still have many champions that can perform well, but for various reasons, they either cannot be utilized or do not function effectively. Gumayusi himself is a stable player with the ability to “carry the team,” but when placed in a difficult situation, he cannot utilize his remaining champion pool to the best of his ability.
Additionally, it shows another factor: T1 remains too loyal to countering strong strategies of their opponents during the match rather than focusing on the draft phase. They allowed Kiin to have Skarner – a champion considered a “once in 200 years” in both games. Or they let Chovy and Peyz have far more favorable picks and then attempted to counter them. This is a characteristic of a strong team, but it’s not always effective.
With this recent defeat, T1 has lost to Gen.G 9 times in a row, and no team has achieved this against Faker’s squad in League of Legends history. Clearly, this is hard to accept, but whether T1 can end this losing streak remains uncertain.