On November 2, the first match of the knockout stage of the 2023 World Championship (Worlds) will officially take place with a clash between NRG and Weibo Gaming (WBG). Therefore, as soon as the Swiss stage ended, teams like T1 and Gen.G quickly headed to Busan (the location of the qualifiers) to prepare the best they could.
However, an unexpected incident occurred with T1 as the team has been unable to practice or play ranked matches for the past two days. According to T1’s manager, the reason for this was that the hotel designated by the organizers was experiencing network issues. In fact, this situation has persisted for the last two days, and T1’s training environment has not improved despite their communication with the tournament organizers.
What’s noteworthy is that T1 is not the only team facing network issues. Right after T1’s manager posted about this, Gen.G’s mid-laner, Chovy, retweeted and expressed agreement. It’s likely that Gen.G and possibly other teams are also unable to practice or play solo ranked matches for similar reasons.
According to a disclosure from journalist Quest of Inven Global, this issue is not new at Worlds 2023. The hotel designated by the Worlds 2023 organizers has been experiencing “loss of connection” during the Play-In stage and the Swiss stage. As a result, many teams had to extend their stay at their original hotel to ensure a better training environment.
Since its inception, Worlds 2023 has done a great job of ensuring the quality of competition and audience excitement for the tournament. The Swiss format has made every match significantly meaningful and increased audience interest. However, the aforementioned network issue is an unfortunate drawback for Worlds 2023.
It should be noted that in just a few days, the knockout stage of Worlds 2023 will officially take place. It would be a significant disappointment if the results of the teams are affected due to the inability to practice for the aforementioned reasons. We hope that the tournament organizers will quickly resolve this issue to provide teams with the best training environment in the near future.