After the Lunar New Year holiday, Bilibili Gaming (BLG) quickly became the center of attention for League of Legends fans. Everything started with their video returning to the LPL after the holiday, where BLG expressed their ambitious goal by openly challenging their biggest rival, T1. This is seen as a direct challenge from BLG to the reigning world champions.
However, BLG’s grand ambitions were quickly questioned by LPL fans. This skepticism arose from the fact that in their first match of the Year of the Dragon, BLG suffered a complete defeat to Invictus Gaming (IG). This 0-2 loss marks BLG’s first defeat in the LPL Spring 2024 group stage.
What’s particularly noteworthy is that the current IG members are mostly young players or not highly regarded. They aren’t even comparable to stars like Bin, Knight, and Xun from BLG. However, on a day when Leyan performed exceptionally well and BLG made numerous mistakes, this “all-star” team had to face a comprehensive defeat.
Not stopping there, BLG has been continuously mocked by LPL fans for their “bragging” about T1 after the above defeat. The phrase “call T1 here” has been repeatedly used by the community as a way to tease BLG. Bin himself has received considerable criticism for his extremely poor performance against IG, finishing with a KDA of 0/6/3 across both games.
Fairly speaking, the loss to IG hasn’t had severe consequences for BLG. This team still sits atop the LPL Spring 2024 standings with five prior victories. However, with fierce competition from both old rivals (JDG, TES) and new ones (IG, NIP), maintaining this leading position will be an extremely challenging task.
Therefore, BLG may need to pay more attention to their competitors in the LPL before thinking about facing T1. It would be unfortunate if BLG misses the chance to meet T1 due to continuous defeats and losing their ticket to international tournaments this year.