Yesterday, the clash between T1 and Gen.G in the LCK Summer 2020 officially took place. Being the “spiritual house” – commentator Hoàng Luân’s preferred choice, most T1 fans were sweating profusely entering this BO3 matchup. However, Faker and his teammates proved that their skill and determination could completely break the curse!
In both games, T1 members made extremely decisive moves and engaged in fights: The most notable was TF in Faker’s hands, who fought bravely everywhere to support his teammates, along with Cuzz’s Sett continuously executing Flash plays, smashing both Gen.G members into each other, setting the stage to take down the enemy’s summoner spells (or even lives), ready to advance towards major objectives.
Returning to the title, in today’s article, let’s analyze the turning point of the first game, when T1, with a “go big or go home” mentality, took a risk to secure Baron while they were losing and couldn’t contest the Ocean Dragon. Besides individual skills and precise team calls, it cannot be denied that Gen.G was overly complacent, and the biggest mistake was the inability to teleport due to a 10-second delay caused by Rascal’s Summoner Spell. (This analysis belongs to Kookmin Ilbo).
At the 30th minute of the game, T1 was trailing by 4K gold, lost all 3 outer towers, the Ocean Dragon was about to respawn and mid lane was pushing. T1 was pushed into a lose-lose situation unable to contest the Dragon, while Gen.G theoretically was in a win-win position. Gen.G decided to play a 3-2 setup, with Rascal (who switched to Smite) and Ruler attacking the Ocean Dragon while the other three controlled Baron. Mid lane minions were pushing, and T1 had no choice but to “bet” on this Baron (According to Canna: That was the best decision we could make in that losing situation). The Dragon spawns at 30:33, Ruler and Rascal start the Dragon at 30:42, T1 starts Baron at 30:47.
Theoretically, both Bdd and Ruler still had teleport available, and Rascal could switch to teleport thanks to the Summoner Spell. If T1 missed the Smite, it could lead to a lost teamfight, and that would be the end of this game. HOWEVER, the issue here is the spell had a 10s cooldown, and only Ruler was able to teleport down in time. Despite Clid’s efforts, Cuzz managed to secure the Baron for T1. Gen.G miscalculated the damage from Aphelios, Azir, and Olaf, and the speed at which they took Baron was faster than expected, and the 10-second cooldown of the Summoner Spell caused Rascal to arrive at the pit when everything was already decided.
Ultimately, with Thresh, Azir, and Sylas, T1 could escape the Baron pit without losing anyone, even trading one kill on Kellin. From a win-win position for Gen.G, T1 managed to swap objectives and even came out ahead thanks to correctly calculating the speed of taking the major objective. Canna shared that the team did not even consider the 10-second cooldown of the Summoner Spell which caused Rascal to arrive late, but sometimes in League of Legends, there are things we cannot predict fully, and sometimes a risky decision in a losing position can bring unexpected success.
Additionally, if you look closely, it seems Clid also made a mistake by using his ultimate on Olaf without applying any crowd control effects. Just as Baron was releasing spikes, he was knocked up, leading to a miscalculation of the Smite even though it was used simultaneously with Cuzz.
From a “nothing to lose” position, T1 gradually equalized the game and used that turning point Baron to snowball, successfully claiming the Elder Dragon Soul, and securing victory. Riding on the wave of positive momentum, T1 completely dominated Gen.G in the second game, clinching the overall win.
After this match, fans can breathe a sigh of relief if next time “saint” Hoàng Luân places his full trust in T1 again, this curse has been broken!