Foreword: The S16 season competitive play has already kicked off, and it's likely that the vast majority of viewers are keeping tabs on the latest battles. The MSI main tournament is set to begin soon, and in recent interviews, the participants have been throwing down verbal jabs, setting a high-voltage atmosphere. These days, T1 is generating enormous buzz. Their newest video release has stirred up widespread backlash from fans. Who could have predicted that the already-departed Little Shrimp (Gumayusi) would still show up in the team’s video? The IDs in the comic-style clip all read as "Peyz," but the voice clearly belongs to Little Shrimp. It's baffling how T1's management keeps making such careless mistakes that have occurred many times before.

T1's trophy celebration video uses Gumayusi's original audio

It's safe to say that most fans are pretty familiar with T1. As a powerhouse in the LCK, they’ve achieved outstanding results over the past few years, securing three consecutive World Championship titles. No matter what lineup they field, they always seem to rise to the occasion in the final showdown. This season, T1 has once again adjusted their starting roster. The combination of Peyz and Doran has been performing fairly smoothly in the current MSI matches. There may be a few misplays here and there, but their overall progress has been steady. When facing off again, they’ve even swept all matches 3-0.

In a recently released video, T1 made another glaring mistake. It’s a promotional clip for a trophy ceremony. T1’s official channel used a comic format to present a dialogue between the five players. However, fans of Little Shrimp quickly noticed that the video features the trophy-winning moment from the S15 season, using Little Shrimp’s original voice—yet all the IDs in the comic are labeled as "Peyz." It feels like T1’s management has crossed a line. Rewriting a historic trophy scene by swapping out the player just seems way too off-putting. Such handling only makes fans feel more disgusted over time, and eventually, it could drag the whole team down, even with a legend like Faker on board.

This isn’t the first time T1’s management has pulled a stunt like this. Earlier, in another comic poster from T1, Peyz was shown using Little Shrimp’s signature "checkmark" hand gesture. Any sharp-eyed fan could tell the comic figure was clearly Little Shrimp, but the ID was changed to "Peyz." It’s plainly an attempt to ride on Little Shrimp’s popularity to boost attention. I hope T1’s leadership will put a stop to this type of behavior. For Peyz, such moves are really unfair. He currently holds a crucial spot in the team, even topping the pentakill leaderboard. During the play-in stage, he also broke records for player damage output. Does it really make sense to keep putting him down like this?

In a recent pre-MSI interview, Little Shrimp was quite active as well. He mentioned that upon learning Uzi would be presenting the FMVP trophy, he really hoped to receive that award from his idol. He’s already taken one trophy from Uzi’s hands, and this time he once again expressed his respect for Uzi. It’s clear that Little Shrimp has excellent interpersonal skills. In comparison, Bin came off as a bit less impressive. In his interview, he openly declared his intention to win the MSI championship, claiming he is the strongest top-laner out there while the others are all pretty average and pose no real challenge. Although this isn’t the first time he’s said something like this, it still feels like Bin might want to tone it down a bit.

Zai Jian's take:

Who would have thought T1’s management could be so bizarre? One slip-up might be chalked up to a design error, but repeating it over and over is clearly intentional. Changing the ID to "Peyz" while keeping Little Shrimp’s original voice is behavior that has seriously crossed a line for netizens. So far, T1’s official channel has not issued any apology, and it seems this will likely blow over just like the last time. It feels like they rely on having a giant like Faker on the team to get away with anything.

How do you, the audience, feel about this situation?