Introduction: The S16 season has officially started, and nearly all players have been paying attention to the recent competitions. LPL and LCK have entered a brief offseason, with most teams taking their Lunar New Year breaks. However, T1 canceled all their holidays and maintained rigorous training during the festival. This is mainly because they lost to BFX before the break and, without Guardian Angel, another loss would mean elimination. Recently, foreign media revealed a new client feature: stranger voice communication, which excited players greatly. There is speculation whether the team voice chat will also have constant beep muting.

Faker throwing Korean won and calling himself wealthy

Most players are quite familiar with T1, a top-tier LCK team with outstanding achievements over the past few years. They won the World Championship three years in a row, and their mid-laner Faker became a six-time world champion. In their last match before the break, T1 unexpectedly lost to BFX, dropping to the losers' bracket, and another defeat would end their first stage run early. To maximize their performance, they gave up their Lunar New Year holiday and have been training intensively at the base. An official video released recently sparked a lot of online jokes.

In T1’s latest New Year documentary, Doran, Oner, Faker, Peyz, and Keria all skipped holidays to prepare seriously for the post-festival matches. During a mini-game segment, Faker appeared throwing Korean won and joked about becoming rich. Honestly, Faker might be the wealthiest among esports pros. Aside from his many years as a pro player, as the top League of Legends figure, his value is undeniable. It’s remembered that a team once offered him a contract worth 120 million RMB for just one year. If he chose to join an LPL team, his fortune would be immeasurable.

In the past few days, foreign media revealed a new feature during the offseason: team voice chat is coming soon. The 16.5 test server added an option to report voice chat abuse and allows switching between party and team voice chats. This means once enabled, players can communicate with up to five strangers, greatly enhancing gameplay experience since typing is slow and few can type like pianists. Honestly, with so many blocked words in the game already, if team voice chat is enabled, will it just be constant beeping muting?

Once this voice feature launches, it will surely boost the game’s popularity significantly. To improve the competition environment, rumors say LPL is starting another round of layoffs among official commentators. Indeed, there’s no need for so many new commentators now; only the veterans attract views. Many netizens joke that post-match hosts are the least useful since everyone has already watched the game, making their commentary redundant and awkward. Honestly, to maintain LPL’s viewership, strong performance is key—no amount of personnel changes can replace winning a World Championship.

Goodbye opinions

Who would have thought T1 didn’t take a break during Lunar New Year, especially since Korea highly values this traditional holiday? Working through this period shows their confidence. Faker, true to his Taurus nature, delivered a great performance, throwing Korean won and calling himself rich. If he isn’t rich, then very few players deserve that title; at least, no other pro players qualify.

What do you all think about this?