T1 vs DAMWON Gaming: The reigning world champion advances to final

Saturday, October 30, will be the first semifinal game day of the decisive LoL playoffs at the World Championship 2021. T1 and DAMWON Gaming will battle it out for the grand final.

World Championship 2021 is the main tournament of the year in the eSports discipline League of Legends. The 2021 edition of the premier international LAN tournament takes place in Iceland and features 22 teams from around the world. The tournament takes place from October 05 to November 06, 2021, and has a prize pool of $2,225,000.

T1 is a Korean eSports team managed 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 previously known as SK Telecom T1.

To develop a young squad before the 2021 season, T1 managed to sign Keriya from DRX, replacing Eforth. This squad finished 4th in the Korean Championship in the spring of 2021, with T1 being heavily criticised for many 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, with Stardust and Moment becoming interim coaches. This team finished second in the summer split, losing to DAMWON Gaming in the final, but Team T1 managed to secure a trip to Worlds 2021 by beating Hanwha Life Esports 3-2 in the regional final.

At Worlds 2021, the Korean team started straight from the group stage. They qualified to Group B, which they won comfortably after losing only one BO1 match out of six. T1’s opponents in the group were: Chinese EDward Gaming (who upset T1 once in the second round), Americans from 100 Thieves, and the obvious outsider of the tournament in the face of Japanese DetonatioN FocusMe. It was very important to take first place in this group to avoid meeting with the giants in the quarterfinals. HLE is tough, but the T1 boys have managed to beat them in their domestic league more than once and did it in the Worlds 2021 quarterfinals. This team has already repeated their past Worlds 2019 achievement at this tournament, but it will be extremely difficult to surpass. In the quarterfinals, T1 easily defeated their opponents from HLE (3-0), but it will be hard to beat the Korean champions.

DAMWON Gaming is a Korean eSports organisation.

In 2020, DAMWON Gaming retained their best roster and finished 4th in the 2020 Korean League Spring Split. In the summer of the same year, DAMWON Gaming won their first LCK title and gained direct qualification for Worlds 2020. They lost just three games in the entire tournament, winning 5-1 in the groups, beating DRX 3-0, G2 Esports 3-1, and eventually Suning 3-1 to secure the 2020 Worlds title.

Khan joined the team in 2021 as a replacement for Nuguri, who left for the LPL team FunPlus Phoenix at the end of the 2020 season. With the new five-person squad, DAMWON Gaming managed to win the 2020 KeSPA Cup, the LCK 2021 Spring Split, and the LCK 2021 Summer Split and finished second at the MSI 2021. These results earned the team a direct invitation to the Worlds 2021, where they intend to reclaim the title of the best team in the world.

The group stage of Worlds 2021 confirms that the Koreans are serious. They are the only representatives of the world champion who made it through their group without losing a single match. Their opponents were the reigning world champions Cloud9, Rogue, and FunPlus Phoenix. The latter were the main disappointment of the group stage, but what does that have to do with the Koreans? That’s right, none; DAMWON Gaming have 6-0.

Their dominance at Worlds 2021 continued in the quarterfinals, where they crushed the Spaniards from MAD Lions (3-0). Who could ever beat these Korean champions?

The DAMWON Gaming’s handicap will be -1.5 on maps; the odds on it are 2.00.

The second map will last over 34.5 minutes; the odds on that are 1.83.