The best team in Europe, G2 Esports, faced off in League of Legends against probably the best team in the world, T1 led by superstar Faker. The semifinals of MSI 2022 were highly anticipated, but the series clearly went in favor of the Koreans. Especially match 3 was a bloodbath: T1 won in 20 minutes. That’s the maximum penalty.

What kind of game was that?

• On Saturday morning, 5/28, starting at 10am German time, G2 and T1 met in a best-of-5 series in the semifinals of MSI 2022 in Busan. The winner of the match gets to play RNG on Sunday, who are already waiting in the finals.
• G2 Esports is the European champion. The team revolves around two experienced veterans, midlaner Caps and jungler Jankos. The two are supplemented with new talents on the botlane and the German-Turk Broken Blade on the top lane. Before the tournament they had promised to kick T1 out of the tournament.
• T1 is the Korean champion: in the midlane plays the “unkillable demon king” Faker, who was able to collect 3 world titles in the early years of League of Legends, but has been waiting for title number 4 since 2016. Meanwhile, the new showpiece of the team is Botlane with ADC Gumaysi and the exceptional supporter Keria, who was voted the best player in South Korea in 2022.

How did the series go? The series went clearly in T1’s favor:

The South Koreans won Game 1 in 24 minutes, with Faker (5-1-2) and Keria (0-1-10) in particular once again putting their stamp on the game. The jungler of G2, Jankos, didn’t get a leg on the ground and played 0-5-6 on Jarvan.

This is seen as a brilliant play by Faker, as he escapes certain death by making Caps look pretty old with the “flash in the wrong direction” – Caps had expected Faker to traditionally jump over the wall, as he should:

Match 2 was then reasonably even: The party lasted 32 minutes. Here, however, Faker turned it up quite a bit with LeBlanc, taking 8-3-5. In addition, T1 jungler Oner on Lee Sin proved to be a brutal factor with 3-2-11. Keria was also involved in 13 kills on Nautilus.

Fans of G2 had still hoped for a miracle after the 0-2: after all, their team is known for “craziness”, they were now praying for a “reverse sweep”, that it would still be a 3-2 for G2 after the close second match, but the opposite was the case.

Match 3 became the maximum penalty for G2: T1 won in 20 minutes and gave up only 5 deaths at all. Faker put down 5-1-5 on Akali, Keria picked up another 13 assists with Renata Glasc.

Match 3 in particular was a brutal affair:

T1 is overrated, my ass!

What’s the commentary on that? People are making fun of it a bit in the comments on reddit that anyone could even doubt T1 after a so-so Rumble stage.

People would have said after the defeats that T1 was “overrated”. That could probably just be forgotten after the performance. Once again, “best-of-1” series have little meaning. In “best-of-5” series, the better team shows itself.

T1’s victory is described as a “massacre.” T1 was an extremely aggressive team, even in the early stages of a match.

For years, this very characteristic was lacking in teams from South Korea, who took a long time to finish a match and, with their methodical, slow style of play, gave even inferior opponents chances to come back . The 2022 edition of T1 no longer seems to have this weakness.

G2 is actually known for having its chances in the mid- and lategame, where you win with superior teamfights and can even come back from high deficits. But when a match only lasts 20 minutes, there’s simply not enough distance left to catch up before the lights go out.

Boss of G2 calls T1 the best team in the world, maybe the best ever

After the match, the head of G2, Ocelote, even called the current edition of T1 “the best team in the world” – that was “completely insane”, he doubted if you’ve “ever seen such a good team.”

The MSI 2022 now seems to show a “LoL” like before: China and South Korea settle the championship title among themselves. The fans of North America and USA are loud and discuss enthusiastically, but their teams have nothing to do with the titles.

A few days ago, things looked quite different as G2 defeated T1 and RNG in their first games, but after that, the worm was in:

LoL: Europe’s hope beats unbeatable uber-teams, loses to underdogs and now it’s like jinxed