On Tuesday,
T1 takes down
Invictus Gaming 3-1 in the elimination best-of-five of the Play-In stage. IG are out of Worlds on the very first day and won’t be advancing to the Main Stage, while T1 qualifies and will have the chance to defend their title against the 15 other teams already waiting in the Main Stage. For IG, despite their fourth seed in the LPL, their season ends here.
This marks the tenth time that T1 and Lee "
Faker" Sang-hyeok will compete at Worlds. As a reminder, the organization has never finished below fourth place, meaning they’ve never fallen short of the semifinals, and have claimed the title five times. T1 have therefore won 55% of the Worlds they’ve played, lifting five Summoner’s Cups out of nine appearances. Now, they’re on track to chase a sixth star — which would be their third in a row.
This T1 victory is in line with their performance throughout the LCK season. As mentioned
in our team preview article, Mun "
Oner" Hyeon-jun is the team’s metronome — the player who sets the pace in best-of series. In Game 1, IG clearly dominated their opponents, with Song "
Rookie" Eui-jin on Ryze looking unstoppable. However, T1’s patience eventually paid off, and as expected, the mistake came from Kang "
TheShy" Seung-lok: a dive attempted mid on Lee "
Gumayusi" Min-hyeong turned into a fiasco for IG. T1 were able to turn the game around and open the series score on red side.
The second game was also dominated by IG. For T1, only Faker had an advantage on Akali. The match was quite long, lasting over 37 minutes, and it was ultimately thanks to Chen "GALA" Wei’s Caitlyn that IG found salvation and secured the win. Game 3 was taken by T1, with Oner delivering a monstrous performance on Xin Zhao, pushing the series to a fourth game. Game 4 was again dominated by Oner, this time on Nocturne, a champion on which he boasts an exceptionally high win rate. T1 qualify as expected for the Main Stage, eliminating Invictus Gaming in the process.
