T1 vs Royal Never Give Up Prediction: No revenge for MSI final

From Friday to Saturday, October 21-22, the playoffs will continue in the League of Legends World Championship. The quarterfinal match will feature T1 and Royal Never Give Up.

World Championship 2022 is the major LoL tournament of the year. The 2022 edition of the premier international LAN tournament takes place in the United States and Mexico and features 24 teams from around the world. The prize pool for the event, which will take place from September 29 to November 05, 2022, is $2,225,000.

All of the Korean teams advanced to the quarterfinals of the World Championship 2022 and they look a lot more confident than the Chinese teams who missed out on TES in the playoffs. T1 team had the most questions from Korean LoL fans on the eve of Worlds 2022. The regional leader had big problems during the summer split of the LCK Korean Championship and did not win it at all, losing to Gen.G in the final.

But T1 did not have any problems in the group stage of the World Championship 2022. In the same group with T1 were: current world champions EDward Gaming, Europeans from Fnatic, and Americans from Cloud9. T1 easily won the group, losing only once in six games, and unexpectedly to Fnatic. It is noteworthy that the Chinese EDward Gaming could not oppose anything to T1 players, who apparently found their game.

It is important that for the T1 team the RNG team is a principled opponent. The Chinese team defeated the Koreans at their home MSI this season, that is why T1 players are looking for revenge for the summer defeat.

T1 is a Korean eSports team run by T1 Entertainment & Sports, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Comcast Spectacor, formed from SK Telecom T1 K and SK Telecom T1 S. They were formerly known as SK Telecom T1.

In an attempt to develop a young roster, before the 2021 season, T1 managed to sign Keria from DRX, replacing Eforth. This squad finished 4th in the Korean Championship in the spring of 2021, with T1 being heavily criticized for the large number of player replacements during the regular season. In the summer of 2021, coaches Daeny and Zefa were fired from the team, right in the middle of the split, and Stardust and Moment became interim coaches. This team finished second in the summer split, losing to DAMWON Gaming in the final, but Team T1 was able to secure a trip to Worlds 2021 by beating Hanwha Life Esports 3-2 in the regional final. At the Worlds, the Korean team made it to the semifinals, which is a good result for them.

After T1 finished 3-4th at Worlds 2021, the team brought Zeus into the starting lineup, and Canna, Ellim, Cuzz, Clozer, Teddy, and Hoit left the team. In the 2022 Spring Split, when 4 of the 5 main players returned, T1 managed to become the first LCK team to ever win a regular season game, breaking their own LCK Summer 2015 record where they finished with a 17/1 record.

RNG has come a long way at the World Championship 2022, on par with DRX, this team made it to the quarterfinal stage of the playoffs overcoming not only the group stage, but also the meat grinder of the Play-In stage. I wouldn't say the RNG had much trouble in the previous two stages of Worlds 2022, but the Chinese didn't get through them without mistakes.

Ahead of the 2022 season, the Royal Never Give Up lineup hasn't changed much. Xiaohu is back on the mids again, this is more due to the wishes of the player himself, accordingly, the team RNG left the former midfielder Yuekai. The vacant top position was filled by Bin, who was very good at Suning and was the vice world champion in 2020. It was Bin that the organization decided to give up despite winning the LPL and MSI-2022 Spring Split, and Breathe, who had previously played for Bilibili Gaming, was signed to replace him. There has been some toppling this summer between RNG and Bilibili Gaming.

Royal Never Give Up was the winner of the spring split between LPL and MSI. The team certainly didn't weaken, and they showed some good play, but just like last year, the team started having problems in the Chinese Summer Split. RNG had to settle for only 5-6th place in the Chinese LPL Championship, losing their first playoff match to reigning world champions EDward Gaming (1-3).

The team had to challenge for the right to play in the World Championship in the regional finals, where they again had big problems. In the first game for the slot RNG again lost to their opponents from EDward Gaming (2-3). Moreover, RNG went 2-0 on the maps, but gave an incredible comeback to the reigning world champions. After falling to the bottom of the bracket, Royal Never Give Up fought last year's participant LNG Esports (3-2) for the last World Championship slot. And in that game was difficult, again, the team led 2-0, gave a comeback and good for RNG they could win the fifth maps, otherwise it would have smelled almost like a disband.

We have more faith in RNG, but the main bet would be RNG Maps Handicap (+1.5) for 1.80 at Bet365, which would be much safer than just choosing RNG to win.

Both squads did poorly in their summer domestic splits, but the teams were able to improve their game at the World Championship 2022. The T1 squad is hungry for revenge, but we think the RNG is a kryptonite for these Koreans and it will be the Chinese squad that will make the semifinals. The odds on RNG's victory are 2.77 at 1xbet.

We also expect a rich confrontation, a repeat of the MSI final, which delighted with five maps, which we predict here as well. Maps Total Over (4.5) is offered for 2.60 by Betway.