That Vayne was zoomin’.
In the LCK Spring 2024 Playoffs, T1 redeemed themselves by completing their revenge match versus Hanwha Life Esports. T1 pulled this off by bringing out pocket picks against HLE in some of the best League of Legends we have seen in recent memory.
T1, consisting of top laner Choi "Zeus" Woo-Je, jungler Moon "Oner" Hyeon-joon, superstar mid laner Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, bot laner Lee "Gumayusi" Min-hyeong, and support Ryu "Keria" Min-seok will represent the LCK in the upcoming MSI 2024 along with Gen.G.
Zeus on his pocket counterpicks: "I put in a lot of time practicing."
In the post-match interview, Zeus talked about his Zac and Vayne picks to counter Rek'Sai. "I thought a lot about facing Rek'Sai with many champions. I put in a lot of time practicing picks that I can pull out," says Zeus. "With Zac, I can win against Rek'Sai, especially in teamfights."
He also received the Player of the Game (POG) award in Games 2 and 3 as Zac and K'Sante, respectively. "[HLE] were really sneaky and focused me down. In game 1... I couldn't execute very well," referring to the laneswap strategy that HLE opened the series with which put Zeus in an incredibly disadvantageous position. "After [game 1], I was able to counterpick and perform pretty well."
Zeus also earned his 200th LCK win in this series.
The T1 top side was bolstered by Oner's Viego picks, too. "In this meta, not a lot of teams are utilizing Viego but I've always rated hum quite highly," says the jungler. "I believe that Viego being left open worked really well for me."
Gumayusi had two games on Senna, pairing it with Keria's Sejuani and Ornn. "I made sure to practice Senna [ahead of our match against HLE]," says Gumayusi. On the other hand, Keria said, "I think we were confident against any sort of draft we were facing," when asked about being a key player in the series.
LCK Spring 2024 Lower Bracket Finals - T1 vs HLE
Game 1 started off relatively normally, apart from the lane swap that HLE set up. This put Zeus' Twisted Fate on the back foot and rendered him virtually useless for a good portion of the game.
Despite this, T1 found good leads through good macro calls and superior teamfighting. At one point, they were ahead by over ten thousand gold. HLE bot laner Park "Viper" Do-hyeon had other plans, however, and carried his team to victory. Interestingly, they chose to be on the Red Side of the map for game 2.
Game 2 of T1 vs HLE saw the first aces up T1's sleeve: Zac top, Viego jungle, and Sejuani support. This is relatively tame and nothing we haven't seen before, but that didn't mean it wasn't effective. T1 equalized the series 1-1 after Viper's poke Varus couldn't get through T1's meatball frontline.
By the third game, HLE adapted by banning Sejuani and killing the flex pick. T1 responded by locking in Ornn support and running back Oner's Viego. The Summoner Spellbook on Ornn support allowed T1 to claim this game early by having two Smites on their team and taking Baron before the 21-minute mark.
Game 4 of T1 vs HLE is where T1 sealed the deal with Zeus' Vayne lock-in. Equipped with Ghost, he was literally running laps around HLE. T1 even treated their opponents to a little déjà vu:
This win meant that for the entirety of the series, Blue Side had 100% win rate.
T1 will face Gen.G Esports in the Grand Final of the LCK Spring 2024 Playoffs for the 5th time in a row. In their past four face-offs in the finals, Gen.G took the trophy the last three times.