On January 28, 2023, the LCK Spring Split qualifier officially appeared with the spectacular debut of two generals Caitlyn and Kalista at the support position. And in particular, fans got the chance to witness the “brain strain” matchup between two equally talented opponents, who currently dominate the LCK Spring 2023 standings with a near absolute number of goals. Those are T1 and DK.
Faced with a mighty warrior, the two certainly had long periods of fighting and strategizing to attack each other.
T1 has always been famous for its clever and skillful gameplay, it’s no exaggeration to say that T1 members have done a great job of controlling the map, guarding, checking the opponent’s vision, and at the same time. it’s almost perfect. This strategy has always been T1’s way of showing that being on top is what it deserves.
DK has never been inferior to any opponent when every season they leave strong impressions in the eyes of the fans. DK through each season always makes changes to the lineup, complements and strengthens the members with their own strengths to become stronger and stronger. However, in the past 2022, DK made the fan community quite unfortunate when they had quite a limited game, the wrong strategy made the whole team accidentally fall into a secret battle and had to stop at the Worlds quarterfinals. DK’s LCK 2022 did not leave much of an impression, nor did they achieve the throne as their goal.
Coming into 2023, though, with a somewhat bold roster change, the appearance of a former Top Laner Canna and reigning 2022 World Championship champion ADC Deft, plus a “golden column”: “brand name” “thousand years” of DK is the mid-jung pairing Showmaker – Canyon – DK that is gradually proving itself to be a strong and worthy opponent for the championship position, at least in the 2023 LCK season.
As the two leading teams in the LCK Spring Split, the January 28 confrontation was the event that made the LCK chat channel explode like never before. T1 and Dplus KIA are very explosive in each performance, however, the score is only one, T1 takes the lead with a tight score of 2-1, and what surprises netizens here is this: it is the use of Kalista by part of T1 Keria, an AD Champion in the Support position. After that day’s win, T1 coach Bae “Bengi” Seong Woong and Lee “Gumayusi” Min Hyeong had a brief interview with reporters. invent global after a tense game.
Gumayusi in the match against Dplus KIA
How do you feel about today’s victory?
Bengi: Dplus KIA is a strong team, we have prepared very well. Although I lost the first game, I was still happy when my team completely won the next 2 games.
Do you share that T1 needs to take the lead in this match? So what is that?
Bengi: Dplus KIA has never had a loss before, they are doing everything right. It will be a positive sign if we beat them and climb to the top of the table in this match. With such a close game, we both have the ability to win. However, we controlled the game better and won against a very strong team this season.
His team recently used an AD champion for support. As an AD carrier, Kalista can be very damaging to you as a bot lane. What do you think about this?
Gumayusi: The bot lane duo is actually Uno. We don’t just pick champions because Keria wants to play that champion. We (duo) practiced a lot of champions together and decided they would be a good fit. Kalista today and supporting Caitlyn last game both performed well, so we both feel we should be using these champions. As I am the only team that plays well with Caitlyn and Kalista as support, I feel like my team has a huge advantage in scrims.
Do you think choosing Kalista support is the right choice? Can you tell us more?
Gumayusi: We were able to pressure the opponent in the laning phase with Kalista’s support early in the game, but our bot lane was attacked by Lv.2 Graves, so the performance wasn’t that great either. Kalista is good in utl though, we did a good 2v2 solo, I think we only showed about 50% of this champion’s ability.
Looking back on today’s game, there were times when you seemed to lose your temper a lot, alone, such as when Baron was robbed, or when you were lying in the opponent’s main area. Was the team missing something?
Bengi: The biggest mistake was losing Baron. Our gameplay lacks some details, like fighting enemy champions. Dplus KIA is a good team, sometimes we worry about affecting the game.
Gumayusi: We were in a hurry, which caused a lot of small mistakes in the team’s game. Dplus KIA is a strong team, so they often take advantage of loopholes to gain the advantage of the match.
Gumayusi said that Keria’s various AD Support champion picks are something only T1 can apply. Keria used to play Ashe, Caitlyn, Kalista. In your opinion, as a bot laner, how would you rate Keria’s AD gameplay?
Gumayusi – Keria generally plays a lot of different lanes when ranked solo, she plays pretty well on most champions. However, playing ADC in the ADC position and the support position is not the same. I agree that he can play, but if I let him AD carry, I’m afraid that Keria won’t get the most out of that champion.
The first match was Lucian – Nami and Zeri – Yuumi. Still a good bot duo, but has changed the champion’s runes and spells. Which is the reason?
Gumayusi: In game 1, the opponent chose Gnar and Taliyah. They have CC, so I chose Cleanse, but then I lost, I got a little angry (laughs). I wanted to put more pressure on game 2, so we decided to play Ignite and Biscuits. I think this option has a positive effect.
excavation T1
T1 has hardly changed the lineup too much for almost 3 years. So what else does the team need to improve on?
Bengi: Losing patience during the game was also a mistake we made in the previous games. So in order to deliver good performances, we need to fix that. I think the whole team needs to improve before going into the important games.
You guys beat GEN.G and Dplus KIA. So which team are you most eager to face next?
Bengi: It can be said that HLE is also the next game of my team. Although HLE has not had a good result, they are still very good players. They can come back at any time.
Gumayusi: I also chose HLE and LSB. I look forward to more HLE. As for LSB, they are in good shape. I think the young players are showing a lot of potential at the moment, it seems that LSB is slowly getting closer and taking off.
