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LoL1 year ago

T1 defeat Weibo Gaming to become the Worlds 2023 champions

T1 is the first team in League of Legends history to lift the Summoner's Cup four times.

It was all fireworks and fanfare when the League of Legends World Championship grand finals ended as T1 stood tall to lift its third Summoner's Cup while Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee went on to lift his fourth title. T1 defeated Weibo Gaming in the grand finals in three straight games, which was also how Faker how his first title.

That win also solidified T1's place in League of Legends lore as they defeated all four LPL teams at Worlds 2023 with only a single map loss to its name. And to play in front of a sold-out home town crowd, the LCK's only representative was able to deliver the perfect ending to the world championship.

 

Four for Faker

With all the momentum riding on T1, they did not start the first game in the best way after Yuan Hao “xiaohu” Li got the first blood on Faker. However, that would be his only kill of the game as Weibo could only get five overall as T1 kicked it into another gear soon after. And it was Ryu “Keria” Min-seok who played a pivotal role in T1's laning phase as well as in team fights as his Renata Glasc was able to get eight assists with zero kills and deaths.

Even Faker didn't have the best of games on Ahri as he missed the majority of his charms. But that didn't matter much in the end as both Moon “OnerHyeon-joon and Choi “Zeus” Woo-je were able to pick up majority of T1's kills. And it was in the second match where T1 were fully operational and took the game to Weibo once more.

This time, T1 managed to keep the LPL fourth seed to just a sole kill the entire match, which went to xiaohu after 18 minutes. And despite being able to get more objectives than the first game, T1 was still able to keep Weibo back for the majority of the match. Even Keria went on to get 11 assists with Renata Glasc once again to go with zero kills and deaths. Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong also chipped in with three kills while Faker's Sylas managed just a sole kill but more than made up for it with his shot-calling and team fight coordination.

While both Oner and Zeus once again were the stars with five kills apiece, Zeus' Gwen was a nightmare for Weibo to deal with as he managed to get a triple kill while tower diving into their base. As T1 wrapped up the second game, they needed just one more win to seal the deal and they did so in some style.

Weibo would get more kills in the third and final match but could not keep up with T1 when it came to securing rift heralds and dragons to aid in team fights and pushes. The game was fairly even for the first 15 minutes before T1 truly started to pull away. This time, Keria would fall twice but compensated it with 16 assists, the highest of all three games in the grand finals. Zeus would once again torment Kang “TheShy” Seung-Iok in the top lane along with Oner, which was the second game in a row where he ended with zero kills and six deaths.

But the icing on top of T1's four-tiered cake was Faker's triple kill in the middle lane as his Akali proved to be nearly unstoppable as he went rampant and danced around Weibo. If there was ever a time when your best player was to step up, it was there and then and Faker played it perfectly to not only secure the team fight for T1. He also laid the foundation for his teammates to build on to take the fight to Weibo whenever possible.

And in the end, it was destined to be T1 to lift its third Summoner's Cup with this being the first major silverware for four-fifths of its starting line-up. As for Faker, this was his fourth world title on the 10th year anniversary of his professional career.

Author
Teh "GravityWillFall" Wi-LiamA failed pro-am gamer turned into a filthy casual with an unhealthy obsession for keyboards and sneakers.