Zeus earned his Finals MVP after T1 swept Weibo Gaming at Worlds 2023.
Since the introduction of the Finals MVP award back in the 2014 World Championship, only two top laners have ever gone on to win it. The most recent was DRX last year that saw Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon clinch the award. Before that, you have to go all the way back to 2015 during T1's era of dominance as former player-turned-coach Gyeong-Hwan “MaRin” Jang won it. And with T1 winning it again this year to make it four Summoner's Cup, it was a top laner from T1 who won the Finals MVP yet again.
At just 19 years of age, Choi “Zeus” Woo-je joins an exclusive list of Finals MVP winners who won the award before they turned 20. Included in the list are the likes of Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu who won in 2020, Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang in 2018, and Jae-Hyuk “Ruler” Park, which was in 2017. There is a diversified list of players who have won the Finals MVP award before, but nobody has yet to win it twice. Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee could have won it this year were it not for the heroics of Zeus in all three of T1's games against Weibo Gaming.
Top Lane Gap
In a season that also featured plenty of lows had its fair share of highs, many of which Zeus can be proud of. Not everyone can say that they are an Asian Games gold medallist at the ripe age of 19. Zeus' bounce back after a disappointing season with T1 has been nothing short of remarkable. The team faltered during the Spring and Summer splits this year but were still able to finish second in both occasions. They also finished third at the Mid-Season Invitational, which was further fuel for Zeus to grab the gold medal after Korea defeated China in the semifinals.
While T1 as a whole played well throughout the tournament, Zeus' moment of fame came during the grand finals where his Yone, Gwen, and Aatrox caused all sorts of problems for Weibo. In the first match, it was his Yone against Kang “TheShy” Seung-Iok's Aatrox who had the better early game after some great ganks to stop Zeus' momentum. But it wasn't enough as even after two deaths, he still played a big part in T1's comeback. A pivotal moment was in the 21st minute of game one where Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong was beset upon by four from Weibo.
Instead of going to help his teammates secure the other kills, Zeus decided to go straight for Yuan Hao “xiaohu” Li for a solo kill. He would immediately flash forward right after to get the double kill on TheShy. Less than 10 minutes later, T1 were knocking on the door of Weibo's base with four of them pushing top and Zeus in the middle. He would come up against TheShy once more and wasted no time in landing multiple knock-ups to solo kill the Aatrox with ease. Zeus then jumped onto Liu “Crisp” Quing-Song's Tahm Kench for his second double kill of the game.
He started the second game using Gwen to go up against Aatrox once more and Zeus opened up the game with another solo kill on TheShy for the first blood. He was even able to outsmart a three-versus-one gank and sacrifice himself to Weibo's turret instead of the champions just a few minutes later. As T1 already had a huge lead from early on, their final push on the top lane saw Zeus go absolutely berserk on Weibo. His Gwen's Snip Snip and Needlework did enough damage to get a triple kill and push the rest of Weibo back into the base.
And in the final, it was finally Zeus' turn to get his hands on Aatrox and he showed TheShy how it should be done. Despite Weibo getting the better early game start, Zeus was still able to get a double kill in the river as T1 chased down a wounded Weibo after a failed three-man gank. Zeus was instrumental in T1 being able to constantly catch Weibo off-guard and a good example of that occurred in the 20th minute. Zeus was able to jump in-between TheShy, Crisp, and Wei “WeiWei” Bohan to cause chaos and disruption for the rest of T1 to follow-up, only for him to get a double kill for his troubles.
Just five minutes later, the same three-man gank combo tried to get Zeus alone on the top lane once again. But given how tanky his Aatrox was, Weibo could barely get a scratch on him, which also included an Azir ultimate. However, Zeus was able to buy so much time that his teammates were able to rotate and clean up four of Weibo to end the game.
A God in the Making
The young top laner has grown from strength to strength over the last couple of years since he joined the organisation three years ago. He first signed for the T1 Academy in June 2020 at just 16 years old with many in the org taking notice of his untapped potential. And in just five months, he would soon move to the first team roster as T1 went through yet another rebuild after they failed to qualify for Worlds 2020.
He would only end up playing just once during the 2021 season as he made his debut for one series during the LCK Spring Split. However, it was against Gen.G n the semifinals of the playoffs bracket, which T1 lost 3-0. They would go on to finish fourth and second respectively during the spring and summer splits, followed by a top four finish at Worlds 2021. You wouldn't hear about Zeus until T1 went through its last rebuild, which is the current roster we know today.
And he started his debut season with T1 in the most perfect way by going undefeated during the Spring Split group stage. T1's dominance carried over to the playoffs where they would drop just one match in seven games to lift its first LCK title in two years. This would also be Zeus' first taste of silverware as he was also voted into the All-LCK First Team, which is unheard of for a player who had just turned 17 and making his debut.
Unfortunately, he would wind up being second-best for the better half of the 2022 season. Zeus and T1 would first lose the MSI grand finals to Royal Never Give Up before getting swept by Gen.G in the LCK Summer Split grand finals. In a split which Gen.G dominated from start to finish, Zeus was the only player from T1 to be voted into the All-LCK First Team for a second time in a year.
Having resigned with T1 for another year, there is still more to come from arguably the organisation's best toplaner in a long while. Zeus has still yet to hit his prime years and if T1 is able to tie him down to a longer contract like they did with Faker, it could only mean great things for the four-time world champions.
