T1
T1
Korea
Rank #3
Sayaplayer
Ha Jeong-woo (하정우)
Rossy
Daniel Abedrabbo
Carpe
Lee Jae-hyeok (이재혁)
iZu
Ham Woo-ju (함우주)
xccurate
Kevin Susanto
took down
FunPlus Phoenix
FunPlus Phoenix
China
Rank #2
Autumn
Kale Dunne
Life
Qu Donghao (瞿东豪)
AAAAY
Zhang Yang (张杨)
BerLIN
Zhang Bolin (張柏霖)
Lysoar
Liang Youhao (梁优好)
ZiXuan
Liu Junwei (刘俊伟)
2-0 in Group B's first elimination match and will go on to face
FUT Esports
FUT Esports
Europe
Rank #3
MrFaliN
Furkan Yeğen
yetujey
Eray Budak
AtaKaptan
Ata Tan
cNed
Mehmet Yağız İpek
qRaxs
Doğukan Balaban
in the decider match to determine which team will join
Evil Geniuses
Evil Geniuses
North America
Rank #29
Derrek
Derrek Ha
NaturE
Nicholas Garrison
supamen
Phat Le
Apoth
Vincent Le
jawgemo
Alexander Mor
in playoffs. Meanwhile, FPX's season is over, and they will be returning home.
Lotus was a close affair with both teams trading rounds until the very end, though it was T1 that ultimately came out on top 13-10. The Korean squad took their momentum to their map choice of Bind, where they won the map and the series 13-7.
T1 huddles onstage at VALORANT Champions Los Angeles Group Stage (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
Going into the series, T1 was hurting after their 2-0 throttling at the hands of FUT. Meanwhile, FPX had fared a little better against EG, with some analysts even believing that they performed above expectations against the Americas' first seed.
T1 in-game leader xeta had a good reason for his team's defeat earlier in the week:
“I just, like, didn't wear my lucky charm, so, like, that's the only reason, yeah,” xeta said with a glance down at his chain necklace.
True to xeta's lucky charm, T1 got off to a better start this series, winning their first pistol round of the tournament with an extremely confident attacker's spawn pinch. Unfortunately for the Korean squad, they lost the lead to FPX and Yuicaw 's attacking Raze Operator and ultimately ended the half down 7-5.
The lead widened to 9-5 after FPX took their defense side pistol round. But then T1 came back alive and blew through FPX's defenses. On round 17, xeta secured a 1v2 by paper-thin margins when he killed nizhaoTZH on the spike with seemingly milliseconds left to the defuse. After winning seven rounds in a row, T1 reached map point, and FPX could only put together one last round before the Korean squad closed out the map.
In their closing rounds, T1 won seven out of 10 post-plants, a contributing factor to their domination in the second half of Lotus.
Going into Bind, Sayaplayer switched from Raze to his comfort pick Jett. This paid off right away on their attack, where Sayaplayer dominated the server with a 14/7/3 KDA and sent his team into halftime with a dominant 9-3 scoreline.
The Korean Jett left halftime ready to finish what he started. He dashed FPX's hopes of winning the pistol round with clean, consecutive headshots on Lysoar in B long and Yuicaw in Garden. But FPX weren't ready to lay down their weapons yet. Lysoar reminded the world why he used to play Reyna on Bind when he hit a 4K on the Sheriff to win FPX's eco round.
Off Lysoar's heroics, FPX brought the map back to a 10-7 scoreline, but the original 9-3 deficit proved too large a gap to overcome. Despite FPX going into the final round with an intelligent execution involving Harbor and Skye's ultimates, T1 were able to flood onto the A site in the chaos and rack up the kills in their favor, concluding the series.
Overall, the Korean squad looked like a more confident version of themselves than they did in their match against FUT. T1 coach Autumn revealed that to be no accident when he was interviewed between maps.
“Our mental wasn't good in our former match,” Autumn said. “So during this game, even when we are losing momentum in tact time or something, xeta and I try to boost our confidence and mental, and I think it's worked.”
T1 are now looking ahead to their next match on Saturday, where they must reverse their previous outcome against the Turkish team if they want to make the playoffs.
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