‘League of Legends is a team game’: By now, it’s safe to assume that a lot of players, whether casual or at the top of the ladder, have heard of people saying something like this at least once. However, even at the highest level of gameplay, there aren’t too many teams that can really play the ‘team game’ to its utmost limit.
However, there was one team that nearly achieved this to perfection. If you look at T1’s individual performance in the 2022 LCK Spring split, they’re definitely never perfect all the time. However, they overcame the individual mistakes through near perfect team play, which resulted in an undefeated split for T1. They’re definitely a team that showcased what team play truly means in League of Legends. So how’d they do it?
Five players, one set of eyes
While most of the teams in the LCK were rebuilding their roster, T1 focused on strengthening their 2021 roster. All the members on the team now have played on the LCK finals stage and on the Worlds stage, and in the process, they’ve grown stronger through defeat.
In terms of team gameplay, T1 was levels above other LCK teams. No matter how well the team played as a unit, even the smallest gap in teamplay meant that T1 was going to snowball it into a huge lead. No matter how skilled their opponents were, T1 simply made them look worse, because if one player on the enemy team was not looking through the same pair of eyes as the other four, they blundered, and T1 punished them for it.
A great example of this is game 1 of the 2022 LCK Spring finals, where Gen.G had to make a decision on whether or not to burst down the Rift Herald or turn on T1 to take the fight. Gen.G couldn’t make a clear decision as a team, so T1 decided to give up the Rift Herald and play the front-to-back teamfight. Something similar happened during Baron Nashor as well, and since T1 moved better as a single unit, you can almost argue that it was T1’s game to win.
Oner and Zeus gets caught, but T1 still manages to turn things around
Let’s take game 3 of T1’s semifinal match against Kwangdong Freecs as another example. KDF managed to take out Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon’s Lee Sin and Choi “Zeus” Woo-je’s Kennen prior to the dragon teamfight. Losing the dragon was one thing, but it looked like it could potentially lead to Baron for KDF. If it was any other team that lost their top-jungle, they would’ve backed off first.
However, T1 was thinking about the one single play that they could make to turn things around. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok’s Vex and Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong’s Jinx were alive, which meant that getting the catch on one single member could lead to a potential 3 vs 5 teamfight victory. And they made that play beautifully, as Ryu “Keria” Min-seok’s Nautilus found the perfect hook on Park “Teddy” Jin-seong’s Xayah. Such a play was possible because everyone was looking at the same angle in that short window.
This also applies to side lane pressure as well. In the semifinals against DWG KIA, the plays that Gen.G’s Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon made were what triggered their comebacks. Even when Gen.G fell behind in global gold, Chovy kept scaling and pressuring side lanes to get objective bounties. Before anyone knew it, the gold gap had closed by a significant margin. Chovy showed enough strength in his ability to pressure side lanes, even taking on enemies 1 vs 2.
T1 however, knew how to cleverly render his side lane pressure. In game 1 of the finals, Faker was able to survive the assault from Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk’s Ezreal and Choi “Doran” Hyeon-joon’s Ornn in the bot lane. All five members of T1 immediately realized that as soon as Gen.G invested resources at bot, they immediately pulled the trigger on Chovy in the top lane, who was relatively farming safely in front of his tier 2 turret. The kill on Chovy was possible due to all five players being on the same page, and knowing exactly what to do when Faker got jumped in the bot lane.
There are a lot of players that are at the top of the LCK on an individual level. From DWG KIA’s Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu to Gen.G’s Chovy, their abilities to carry can triumph over any other LCK team, allowing them to make it as far as the semifinals and even the finals. However, it was not enough to beat the team that was looking at the game in the same pair of eyes. T1 moved as a unit, and it’s one of the core reasons why they were undefeated this split.
"You're already dead, you just haven't caught up yet."
Just because a team’s good at making split-second decisions, it doesn’t mean that everything will play out the way smoothly. T1’s a team that excelled at creating setups, and knew how to make moves to create more advantageous states for themselves.
It all starts with Oner’s early game ganks. It’s pretty common to see tower dives in the top lane be smoother than other teams. When T1 decides to spend resources in the top lane, Zeus always trades to chunk his enemy or make them waste their survivability skills. This was clearly evident in their semifinals match against KDF. In the past, Kim “Kiin” Ki-in’s Akali proved to be incredibly tricky to deal with, as he was able to survive three-man dives. However, T1 was able to get the clean kill on him. Zeus’ Kennen pressured him hard early and made Kiin use Twilight Shroud [W], allowing Oner’s Lee Sin to make the dive right away and get the kill on the elusive Kiin.
Gumayusi and Keria made plays that looked like they were sharing coordinates on Summoner’s Rift. In game 2 of the LCK Finals, Keria engaged on Doran’s Akali, who had a 500g bounty on his head. At first glance, it was odd to see the support engage on a fed Akali. Furthermore, with so much mobility that Akali has, it was also hard to predict her movements. However, Gumayusi was able to predict where Akali was going to be when Keria got the hook on Akali, and landed the Super Mega Death Rocket [R].
Something similar happened in game 3 of the finals as well. When T1 was sieging mid tier 1 turret, Keria confidently walked up and used Ignite Chovy’s Leblanc. It looked odd at first glance, because Keria’s Ignite was never going to kill Chovy, so it looked like a waste. However, once again, Gumayusi got the snipe with Jinx’s R on Leblanc, which eventually led to a kill.
Keria was able to see how the play was going to pan out, so he started the trade by Igniting Chovy. T1 could’ve easily just played the siege game and pressure Gen.G in a steady fashion. However, they were able to snowball their advantages even quicker by creating these setups that lead to kills like these.
T1 sets these clear goals for themselves, and executes them beautifully. Through their supreme ability of making these setups, massive plays like this leads to even more advantages for the team. It’s also incredibly hard to predict such plays, so it feels as if T1’s excels on a fundamental level, because for them, these plays come almost naturally.
Some say that T1 only looks as good as they do now because other teams in the LCK have gotten worse. Now that T1’s representing the LCK at the upcoming Mid-Season Invitational 2022, they now have a chance to showcase their supremacy on the international stage. Will they be able to relive their former glory days of SKT T1?
