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T1 and DRX charge into the Worlds 2022 semi-finals
T1 and DRX have made it to the semi-finals after very different, but both very impressive, quarter-final matches at the World Championship.
On the one hand, South Korean teams T1 and DRX have achieved something spectacular at the League of Legends World Championship 2022, having both reached the semi-finals. But on the other hand, their routes to the semi-finals couldn't have been more different.
For DRX, battling against last year's Worlds winners, Edward Gaming proved to be a truly epic contest, with their bout ending 3-2 in DRX's favour. But T1 appeared to breeze through their opponents, Royal Never Give Up, ending the series 3-0 and even managing to secure a sub-30 minute win against the Mid-Season Invitational 2022 winners. Let's take a closer look at how these matches played out and what's to come for these teams in the semis.
T1 stomps RNG
Victory for T1
© Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
Now that the dust has settled, we know exactly how T1 pulled off a miraculous 3-0 victory against RNG – slow, considered plays, only taking on fights where they felt they had an advantage. But early on in the series, ten minutes into the very first game, it was unclear which team was really in the lead.
The game had started relatively slow, with no serious action taking place until a fight over the Herald at around the ten-minute mark. T1 took the objective, but RNG took more kills, asserting an early dominance over their opponents. But this soon crumbled as team fight after team fight started to go in T1's direction – slowly at first. By the end of the game, RNG could only muster single kills in any given team fight, and it became painfully obvious that they were putting all their efforts into taking down Lee 'Faker' Sang-hyeok.
Clearly learning from their mistakes, RNG came fighting back with a more aggressive attitude, committing their resources to the top lane and immediately taking control of the second game. T1 struggled for half an hour as RNG kept pushing against them, taking them down in every team fight and picking up drakes while T1 got nothing.
It was nearly 38 minutes into the game that T1 finally managed to gain an advantage. With three kills to RNG's 10 and only one drake to RNG's four, all hope appeared lost for T1. But a truly outstanding team fight over the Elder Drake saw T1 clear four members of RNG off the Summoner's Rift at the cost of only two of their own. This allowed them to grab not only the Elder Drake, but also the second Baron of the game, and push this advantage down the midlane and into RNG's base for an utterly astonishing 42-minute win.
After two close games, you'd expect the final game to be just as epic, and it was – just not for the reason you might think. RNG started up with old tactics – singling out Faker and pushing for early kills – but T1 were more prepared this time and fighting with champions they could dominate with. In particular, jungler Mun 'Oner' Hyeon-jun on Sejuani was a beast, soaking up damage and dealing out kills, while bot laner Lee 'Gumayusi' Min-hyeong made playing Varus look easy.
In the end, the match was characterised by constant fighting all over the map, with T1 coming out on top in most of them. With 22 kills under their belt, the team stormed RNG's base in under half an hour, eventually tearing down the enemy Nexus in just 26 minutes.
With one Chinese team defeated, T1 now face another – JD Gaming, the League of Legends Pro League's first seed. This will be T1's toughest enemy yet, with JDG having matched T1's record throughout Worlds (5-1 at Groups, 3-0 in the quarter-finals), but if this quarter-final series has proven anything, it's that T1 won't go down without a fight.
DRX's epic battle with EDG
DRX went the distance for five full games
© Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
T1 may have had some long, tough matches, but the final result was still a stunning 3-0. Their countrymates DRX, however, had a much tougher time against China's Edward Gaming, with the shortest match finishing in around 35 minutes – and that was the first game, which ended in a loss for DRX.
Indeed, the first two matches of the series ended with EDG as the victors, though they weren't clean victories by any means. DRX spent Game 1 cleaning up on objectives, but EDG quietly powered up and became near-unstoppable in team fights. DRX attempted a sneaky top lane base dive with two members, but it was for nought as EDG swept them away and took the first win.
Game 2 will go down in history for Kim 'Deft' Hyuk-kyu's top lane base rush during a team fight in the Baron pit. EDG committed to the Baron, leaving Deft plenty of room to finish up the game alone as he took down towers solo. But almost out of nowhere, EDG appeared and pushed Deft back with just the tiniest sliver of health left on the Nexus. Had Deft been able to stick it out for one more auto-attack, the game would've been won. Instead, EDG finished up the game for their second win.
From here on, DRX needed to win every single game ahead of them to stay in the competition. The team would've been forgiven for feeling a little broken after their defeat in Game 2, having come so close to victory. But if they were, they didn't show it. DRX held firm in this game, picking up objectives and keeping the kill counts close, and Deft got his chance to redeem himself with a late-game base push alongside two of his team-mates to score a crucial first win. Happy birthday to Deft, indeed.
Game 4 was as evenly matched as the rest of the games, with DRX eventually picking up the win and pushing the series to Game 5. And it was in this final game that the squad finally took a more dominating position. The first indication of this was in Kim 'Zeka' Geon-woo's First Blood, which came after nearly being taken down by EDG before flipping around and taking the kill for himself.
Indeed, Zeka was the true MVP of the game, putting in an utterly astounding performance in his first ever Worlds appearance that kept EDG on their toes at all time. His amazing skills even helped turn the tides in a crucial 5v4 in the Dragon Pit, where he picked up an incredible quadra kill, scoring an ace on EDG in the process, and leading his team to victory in a truly historic reverse-sweep.
DRX will feel pretty confident after that huge turnaround, and they'll need it in their semi-finals bout against fellow South Korean team Gen.G, who entered Worlds 2022 as the League of Legends Champions, Korea's top seed. But with a man like Zeka on their side, DRX will surely like their odds in the next fight.
