After many days of anticipation, MSI 2024 has finally kicked off with the first two matches in the Play-In stage, specifically the match between FlyQuest – PSG Talon and T1 – Estral Esports. Among these two matches, the most notable is undoubtedly the clash between T1 and the much smaller team from the Latin American region. A victory for T1 was expected beforehand. But how T1 wins is what fans are more curious about.
In reality, both teams had a very “chill” game day as T1 can be said to be “playing while creating content” while the players of EST were thrilled to face the “kings” of the League of Legends for the first time. It is clear that even though they were defeated 0-2, the EST players did not seem downcast, even as their Nexus was about to explode. Competing against a top-tier team like T1 is an experience that teams from smaller regions like EST do not always get.
However, on the HUPU information page of LPL fans, T1’s ratings were surprisingly low. Despite being the winning team, the entire T1 lineup received lower scores than EST. The highest score went to Keria, while Zeus only received a score of 5.5. This sparked intense debate right under the post as it clearly seems unreasonable: “I know EST put in a lot of effort, but doesn’t anyone find it ridiculous to rate the winning team 2-0 like that?”.
Explaining this, in addition to a segment of LPL fans possibly being anti-T1 after the team defeated all four representatives from the Chinese region at last year’s World Championship, it seems this may also be encouragement for the EST players. In the match, they showed a desire to win and truly made an effort. In fact, EST had some notable plays in both games. It’s just unfortunate that T1 is at a much higher level and their macro skills are so superior that EST could only follow the gameplay of Faker and his teammates.
– “People think this rating is criticizing T1, but in reality, it still holds some truth. The point of this is that T1 played poorly compared to their own standards but still won 2-0 against a team that played their best”
– “Only on HUPU do we see a losing team score higher than the winning team”
– “HUPU is as average as ever”
– “EST played as if they could win 2-0 in the context of T1 playing less than 50% of their ability. So the gap isn’t that significant”
Furthermore, these ratings mostly come from internet users. Therefore, they probably won’t affect T1 much. Moreover, with the relaxed and somewhat entertaining mindset clearly displayed, a clean victory is enough for T1, and perhaps how they win is no longer that important.