With great fanfare, the LoL team T1 announced half a year ago that they had hired two top new coaches: Yang “Daeny” Dae-in and Lee “Zefa” Jae-min had just become world champions with DAMWON Gaming in League of Legends. They were to lead the struggling team around superstar Faker back to the top of the world. But even “the God of LoL” failed in the mission.
This is the situation:
- The Korean team T1 is the most famous team in League of Legends. T1 has been world champion three times with superstar Faker.
- But the last triumph was 5 years ago: T1 last won in 2016. Since then, the team has been struggling, frequently changing the lineup, missing the qualification for important tournaments. Even the “immortal demon king” himself suddenly seems no longer to be a saint.
- Before 2021, T1 hired the miracle coaches who had just led the young DAMWON Gaming from Korea’s nowhere to the world champion title. But their magic seems to have evaporated at T1.
“God of LoL” fails in mission: 4th world title for Faker
This is how the coaches presented themselves: In January, we reported on coach Yang “Daeny” Dae-in: he was then regarded as a genius strategist who had presented himself to his team as “the God of LoL”.
Daeny issued the order: He wanted to destroy the team he had created with T1: The world champions of DAMWON Gaming had to be defeated.
It was seen as a matter of honor to bring T1 back to the top of the worldwide LoL – after all, T1 and Faker are considered something like a national treasure in Korea.
As the coaches hinted, the job was also well paid.
Coaches after 7 months with a 17-13 record – apparently too little
This is how it went now: The magic of the coaches seems to have completely evaporated at T1:
In the 7 months of their reign, T1 only played 17-13. In the current split, they stand at 5-5: This threatens T1 to miss the qualification for the Worlds 2021 again.
This was the dismissal: T1 states in a statement that they made the difficult decision to part ways with the coaches. The management hopes that with the dismissal of the coaches, the team can rejuvenate and find more success in the next 8 games.
For the moment, two former assistant coaches, “Moment” and “Stardust”, will fill the gap. Currently, there are no plans to hire a new head coach.
Because “for now” is emphasized twice, it seems clear: If the two new coaches do not work, T1 will look for new alternatives (via twitter).
Players of T1 were not asked or informed beforehand
This is curious: The players of T1 were not warned in advance, as later became known. The general manager thought it was not a good idea to inform the players before the change. The players only learned about the coaching change at the press conference.
As general manager Choi “Polt” Seong-hun states, the players were “surprised”. Polt explains that he made the decision based on his experience and coordinated it directly with CEO Joe Marsh. The general manager thought it was better to let the coaches go now than to wait.
The topic of “coaches and T1” is a minefield. A year ago, there was talk that T1 wanted to take an unusual path and planned to hire new innovative coaches: supposedly even an American. Fans then erupted in protest. T1 then opted for the “safe” solution. How that ended up is what we see now:
Fans protested angrily against T1, the most important LoL team in the world
