T1 have it all to do this weekend.
When the League of Legends World Championship was announced to be held in South Korea, many were excited to see just how well the LCK can perform given the overwhelming support the nation has when it comes to esports. Having recently won the gold medal for their country at the recent 2022 Asean Games, the LCK were expected to dazzle the home town crowd but as it turned out, that wasn't the case.
Today marks exactly one month since Worlds 2023 began and with only four teams left in the competition, 
T1 is the only LCK squad left in the tournament. Alongside them are three other teams comprising Mid-Season Invitational winners 
JD Gaming, their bitter rivals 
Bilibili Gaming, and 
Weibo Gaming who have been somewhat of a dark horse in the tournament. Korea got bested during the quarter-finals as the undisputed LCK champions 
Gen.G lost to BLG while 
KT Rolster was eliminated by JDG. Even the likes of 
Dplus KIA couldn't make it past the Swiss Stage.
- Read more: What happened to the LCK?
As it stands, T1 will play JDG on Sunday, November 12 to determine who will move on to the finals to face either Bilibili or Weibo. Either way, T1 is the only team standing for the whole of the LCK and South Korea as they prepare to go up against yet another LPL team. Weibo and Bilibili will kick off the semifinals tomorrow.
Faker versus LPL
And leading T1's charge against the LPL is none other than 
Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee, who will be making his eighth appearance in the semifinals of Worlds, more than any other current active player. With those eight semifinal appearances, he has also made it to the grand finals five times and won three in the process. Both Faker and T1 have never finished outside the top four at the world championship with only two semifinal exits back in 2019 and 2021. While Faker's run against other LCK teams in the Knockout Stage does have a few blemishes, the same can't be said about his record against the LPL.
Since 2015, Faker has now faced LPL teams six times at four separate world championships. Last year was its biggest haul as T1 faced two LPL teams in the quarter- and semifinals, both of which they won convincingly. However, this record will be easily trumped if T1 make it to the grand finals and win.
This will also be JD's second time meeting T1 in the semifinals of the Knockout Stage after they lost last season. And funny enough, 
Royal Never Give Up has played the most games than any other LPL team against T1 at Worlds and have lost all three times in 2016, 2017, and 2022.
T1 is also one of the few teams at Worlds this year that did not alter its starting roster during the off-season last year. Instead, they decided to keep the core group intact with Faker at the lead. He was able to lead this team to a second-place finish last year that also included just four map losses the entire tournament. T1 have only lost one map so far at Worlds this year, which was against Gen.G.
Can T1 do it?
T1 will have to wait until Sunday to play their best-of-five series against JDG but they will get to see who their opponents will be beforehand. And while their Worlds record against the LPL is still intact, the same can't be said about T1's run at international competitions as a whole. At MSI earlier this season, T1's only losses at the tournament came at the expense of the LPL, JDG and Bilibili in particular.
JDG knocked T1 down from the upper bracket final before Bilibili dealt the finishing blow to eliminate them from MSI. There will be demons that T1 is looking to extinguish come game time and if Bilibili were to win tomorrow against Weibo, it will be the perfect revenge plan for the three-time champions. JDG have proven to be the LPL team to beat this season as they look to make a complete sweep of this year's accolades.
But as it stands, the momentum is with T1 given how easily they dispatched 
LNG Esports. As for JDG, they dropped the first match of their best-of-five against KT Rolster, which goes to show that anything is possible at Worlds. It also helps that the backdrop for the tournament is in South Korea, where everyone will be a T1 fan this weekend and quite possibly, next weekend as well.
