In League of Legends, the reigning world champion T1 is gaining momentum with midlaner Faker just in time for the World Championship. After a long period of struggles, T1 seems to be in top form now. In the quarter-finals of Worlds on Saturday, October 19, 2024, they left one of the strongest teams from China, TopEsports, with no chance. Toplaner Zeus and Botlaner Gumaysui played exceptionally strong.
This was the situation: Things were not going well for T1 in 2024 at all. The South Korean superstars were only able to qualify for Worlds as the 4th team. After the World Championship victory in 2023, it seemed like the air was out this year. In August, fans worried about Faker when he became unusually emotional after a loss.
In the quarter-finals of the World Championship, T1 now faced the Chinese team TopEsports. They have two of the best players in the world in their ranks: jungler Tian and botlaner JackeyLove.
But what was expected to be a close match turned into a showcase for the Korean stars.
T1 gives no chance to the Chinese stars
This is how the matches went: Each match ended in a clear victory for T1:
- Match 1 ended 13-5, with Zeus on Camille (3-0-8) dominating the opponents. Tian and JackeyLove didn’t secure a single kill.
- Match 2 was even worse. Here, T1 won with 15-0. Faker played a perfect 6-0-6 on Ahri. People on Reddit joke that he only played it to choose it later as a skin for Worlds. The last Ahri skin from Faker was exorbitantly expensive.
- Match 3 also went 14-7 to the South Koreans. Here, Gumayusi, who didn’t die throughout the entire series, achieved a 7-0-3. Faker played Galio.
T1’s entrance is already impressive:
T1 is celebrated on Reddit
This is being discussed: Especially the poor top laner of the Chinese team, 369, has to hear on Reddit how much Zeus has outperformed him.
That Faker has now participated in Worlds 9 times and reached the semi-finals 9 times is seen as an incredible achievement.
One commentator says: T1 makes “TopEsports” look like “BottomEsports” – Gumayusi didn’t die even once.
The performance of Keria is also highlighted in the comments, as Keria is seen by many as an absolute exceptional talent as a support player. One writes: Being Keria is so unfair. The first advantage is: You never have to play against Keria. The second advantage is: Everyone else has to play against Keria.
This defensive play where Zeus escapes certain death is seen as a genius play because Zeus anticipates everything correctly and then escapes so surprisingly:
Tournament favorites are still fighting for victory
What’s next? Today at 2 PM FlyQuest plays against Gen G. It’s expected that tournament favorite Gen G will defeat the total outsiders FlyQuest and compete against T1 in the semi-finals on Sunday, October 27, 2024.
The winner of this match will play in the finals on November 2, 2024, in London against the winner of the all-Chinese semi-final Weibo Gaming vs. BLG for the world title.
Gen G and T1 is a remake of the legendary final of LoL Worlds 2017, when you saw Faker cry.
The midlaner of Gen G, Chovy, is seen as a possible successor to Faker as “the face” of LoL. The other candidate, knight, is still in the running with his team BLG. So the World Championship is going pretty much as the bookmakers predicted. The top favorites are still in the tournament: Who will win the LoL Worlds 2024? Two pros want to finally replace Faker
Update October 20, 7:53 PM: Gen G won as expected against FlyQuest, but by 3-2, significantly closer than thought. But it will come to a showdown between Gen G and T1, between Chovy and Faker.
