T1 defeated Dplus Kia 3-1 in the first round of the 2023 League of Legends Champions Korea Summer Playoffs held at Gran Seoul LCK Arena in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 9th. Although they showed an uneasy appearance in the beginning, T1, which defeated the difficult enemy Dplus Kia, headed for the second round of the playoffs. Interim Head Coach Lim Jae-hyun, who was interviewed after the game, expressed his feelings of victory, saying, "I won 3-1, but I think I won dangerously."
Due to Dplus Kia's choice of blue, T1 played its first game in red. Even after that, whenever we played matches in the red camp, T1 put a fixed ban in mid, and Nico was mixed in among them. Regarding the ban pick, Interim Head Coach Lim Jae-hyeon said, “When the red team put bans on a regular basis, not only mids but also Nico played with them, but in Nico’s case, we made good use of ‘Canyon’ Geon-bu Kim and decided that it could be tricky when swapping. made up," he explained.
Interim Head Coach Lim Jae-hyeon showed satisfaction with the overall ban-pick composition. He said, "When I played the game in the red camp, I thought it worked well in the first phase of the ban pick."
"When we moved on to the second phase, we chose Renekton instead of Aatrox, but when we used Aatrox in the first set, I think there was a part where the opponent made us a little more comfortable," he said. There was also a part where we lost money in the jungle, so in the second set, we talked about making a pick with a little more initiative than taking Aatrox.”
T1, which showed a sluggish performance during the absence of “Faker” Sang-hyeok in the middle of the second round, is improving its performance after Lee Sang-hyeok returned just before the playoffs. Interim Head Coach Lim Jae-hyeon showed some satisfaction with his current performance. He said, “Even before (Lee) Sang-hyeok got sick, I think the team wasn’t perfect and there were mistakes.” I think I'm doing better now than I did when I wasn't."
Following this, he also showed his will to win the summer. Interim Head Coach Lim Jae-hyeon raised his voice, saying, "Until Sang-hyeok came back, he only wanted to go to Worlds, but now he has a good practice process and his performance is improving, so he is looking forward to winning the summer."
Reporter Yoon Sik Kang (skywalker@dailyesports.com)
