The LCK third split group stage has officially begun. On the first match day, NS in the Rise Group blanked KRX to secure an opening victory. After two splits of integration, NS appears to be on track. Scout, Lehends, and Kingen are all performing well. If they keep up this pace, making it to the Knight's Path is definitely achievable. However, their real level is still hard to gauge because the group consists entirely of weaker teams.

Another match on the same day was KT versus T1. Before the game started, KT suddenly announced that second-team bot laner FenRir was promoted to the first team as a starter, due to conflicts among players during practice. Shortly after the announcement, Korean netizens revealed the reason for the internal strife: during a review session with the mid and jungle, Aming made personal attacks on them during an argument.

The incident occurred last Friday, right after KT finished the KeSPA Cup. Aming deliberately provoked the mid and jungle, leading to a physical altercation between the two carries. Since the AD was in the wrong, the club demoted Aming and temporarily promoted the second-team AD. Aming will definitely not stay with the team; KT will likely trade him away as early as this weekend. Despite the sudden lineup change weakening KT's power, T1 was surprisingly swept 2-0 in this match.

Let's briefly review this BO3 to see how T1 lost. In the first game, at 4 minutes, Oner ganked bot and secured two kills. However, during the subsequent mid gank, Faker missed his Akali E, resulting in insufficient damage, and Oner was killed by Cuzz. Then, Peyz overextended in lane and got caught. T1, who had an early 1K lead, saw their economy instantly equalized. In the following team fights, T1 made frequent mistakes, allowing KT to take the first game.

In the early phase of the second game, T1 had advantages in all three lanes. But at 8 minutes, Oner had a bright idea and dragged the mid laner and support to invade the enemy's F6. As a result, BDD hit three with his ultimate, and Yone got a triple kill, starting 3-0 and snowballing. However, KT's advantage was concentrated solely in the mid lane; T1 managed to open up the top and bottom lanes. By the mid game, T1 won consecutive team fights, and at 26 minutes, they led by 5K gold. Yet despite such a huge lead, they were still overturned.

At 27 minutes, Faker had a sudden idea and drove with Oner to catch BDD, but they were surrounded by the enemy. Faker saw the situation and ran away, but Oner and Doran (who teleported in) both died. KT then took Baron, and through a wave of macro play, the gold gap was narrowed. KT also secured the dragon soul by leveraging minion wave advantage. Feeling the pressure, T1 made a rash decision to go for Baron, but the jungler and bot duo were hit by a full Rumble ult. KT ended the game with a 1-for-5 team fight.

In this BO3, T1's mid-jungle duo was really poor. Faker missed skillshots constantly, and Oner kept dragging teammates into jungle invasions. The key issue is that both of them would suddenly make big plays that backfired. One might think T1 was the team with internal conflicts. On the other hand, Doran, who is often criticized, actually performed decently, which was quite surprising. If things don't improve, maybe they should find a substitute jungler.

KT had only replaced their AD less than a week ago and hadn't fully integrated yet. If T1 still can't beat them, then in this split's Legend group, they might end up at the bottom. Actually, KT also made many mistakes, giving T1 plenty of opportunities. But T1's frequency of errors was even higher than KT's, which was the main reason for the loss. If they can't adjust their form, this year's T1 might not even earn a World Championship slot.

Conclusion:

This internal strife in KT seems to have exposed the culprit. In the past, they often lost to T1 and were mocked as a "charging bank." But once the second-team AD came in, the charging bank exploded and blew T1 up. So it turns out Aming was the worst, even worse than the second-team AD. However, T1 was also ridiculous; with a 5K lead, they still messed up team fights. That's just too abstract.

So, who do you think is in worse form among T1's mid and jungle?

Feel free to leave a comment and discuss!