T1 returned to winning ways during the fourth week of the 2021 LCK Spring Split after defeating Nongshim RedForce in an intense series 2-1.
There were high expectations on T1 as the went into the League of Legends match. They needed to avoid finding themselves in the bottom of the standings having experienced defeats in the past few weeks of the split.
Nongshim RedForce also had a lot on the line going into the game as they were trying to prove themselves as a middle-of-the-pack team.
Keria and Faker took home the Most Valuable Players price in the series following their performance on Leona and Orianna.
Due to Keria’s Leona performance in the first game, the pick was swiftly banned in the second game. The first game showed that the champion had great initiations on the NS roster, snowballing the opponent in the first game. On the other hand, T1 banned Orianna in the first two games of the series. But it emerged as the first pick for Faker in the third game. The champion showed its great laning phase and team fight potential, scaling well with the new itemization in League.
T1 made a statement in the matchup, as Zeus popped on Gnar in the top lane, which constantly see him outplay his opponents in dire situations. The stellar performance ion the early-game play led to a turn around a one-vs-two fight, which helped T1 snowball the game out of control.
Keria on Leona’s ultimate engaged on mispositioned enemies to pick up easy kills. Zeus ended the first game with 3/0/8 on Gnar, while Keria scored a 1/1/10.
The second game was a complete contrast as T1 were outplayed early on in every lane. Teddy’s lacklustre performance see him subbed in for Gumayusi. His performance sees him mispositioning in teamfights and wasting his ultimate a couple of times. T1’s indecision was capitalised on by NS, who equalized the series in 35 minutes.
In the third game, it was a scary moment in the early period for T1 but bounced back during the mid-game. NS picked up a couple of early drakes and towers, but T1 grouped up and outplayed them in teamfights. All thanks to Faker’s Orianna, which controlled the pace of teamfights to secure the series for T1.
Written by Oladipupo Mojeed
