As of now in the 2022 season, T1 can be said to still be on the right track. However, the fact that the team, which remains undefeated (up until after Spring 2022), performed poorly at MSI 2022 is hard to accept. Furthermore, the MSI 2022 being held on home soil has made T1 fans in particular and the League of Legends (LoL) community in the LCK region in general even more frustrated as they missed the chance to reclaim the MSI championship title from the Chinese teams.
Because the 2022 Asian Games have officially been postponed to 2023 due to the impact of the pandemic, at this time, for teams in the LCK (Korea) and LPL (China), there will only be domestic leagues and the 2022 World Championship (Worlds) left to strive for. And in the upcoming highest-level international tournament of the LoL scene, barring any surprises, T1 will still be a strong candidate for the championship.
However, recently, a large fan group of T1 in South Korea sent an open letter requesting that the team quickly recruit a new coaching staff, or at least hire a former player to join the coaching staff. According to the fans’ argument, the two current coaches of T1, Moment and Polt, are not qualified enough to lead the team to international championship titles.
Coach Moment and Coach Polt are viewed by T1 fans as not qualified enough to lead the team to international championship titles.
According to fans, T1 players mostly conduct discussions between players and coaching staff. However, the lack of an experienced coach sometimes leads this team to have inconsistent strategies and often results in “unexplainable” picks and bans.
Additionally, Coach Moment is also criticized for lacking high-level coaching experience as he, aside from the achievements he has gained with T1, has never participated in playing or coaching any top-tier team in the LoL scene. A notable example is at the 2022 MSI Finals, in the two crucial games, Games 1 and 5, T1 had no good strategies or picks and bans, especially in Game 5. More importantly, according to T1 fans, this issue still exists up to the present – in the middle of Summer 2022.
Furthermore, fans also believe that T1 players do not receive useful feedback from the coaching staff, primarily relying on self-assessment among players, which has been evident several times when cameras caught T1. Additionally, T1 fans hope that the team will interact more frequently with the fan community and show them that T1 truly knows how to win at the upcoming Worlds 2022.
Nevertheless, the demands of T1 fans may be difficult to implement immediately. However, this open letter may help T1’s management recognize the issues and seek solutions before the official start of Worlds 2022.