Group D of Champions Paris featured a banger opener.

On one side, T1 T1 Korea Rank #2 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) : the Masters Bangkok champions, spearheaded by the global VCT kill leader BuZz . On the other side, Dragon Ranger Gaming Dragon Ranger Gaming China Rank #6 Flex1n Lo Rui (罗瑞) Life Qu Donghao (瞿东豪) vo0kashu Ilya Ushakov Akeman Zhang Haoran (张浩然) Nicc Shao Yi-qun (邵逸群) SpiritZ1 Lin Dingyu (林定宇) : the Ascension 2023 act who have nearly won in China on multiple occasions and who fielded world champion Demon1 in vo0kashu 's place.

The Korean side struggled on DRG's Lotus pick and had to squeeze out a 15-13 overtime win. The China runners-up didn't make Sunset any easier either, and forced T1 to a triple-overtime 16-14 win that closed out the match.

T1 moves to the winner's match, where it will face the winner of G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #2 jawgemo Alexander Mor BABYBAY Andrej Francisty trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio leaf Nathan Orf vs. Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #14 koshmaras Martynas Namikas Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius . DRG will play the loser of that match.

DH celebrates on stage (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

Two days ago, the world watched Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 invy Adrian Jiggs Reyes Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov start its trek toward becoming just the second-ever team to win two VCT events in the same year. Today, the world bore witness to T1 beginning a very similar path.

And it did so against a Chinese team, against whom T1 had a 4-2 record coming into the match. It extended that record today against DRG on two maps, but there were several occasions where it looked like it might not happen.

On Lotus, Nicc nearly won a 1v3 in about two seconds that gave his team the win in regulation, but DH made sure he fell short of that in an A site retake. That led to overtime, where T1 ultimately won 15-13.

On Sunset, DRG's SpiritZ1 came from nowhere to beat down four and eventually push his team to map point. The Pacific representatives forced overtime in the second map, but DRG seemed unshaken by that.

DRG kept pressing on: it stopped a number of successive match points from its opponents, and seemed to be pushing for a fourth overtime with an early 5v3 situation on round 30, where T1 was up 16-15.

However, it was at this moment that Meteor 's prowess shined. He had a contained first map, but was one of the driving forces behind T1 on its map pick, with a 26/20 KD coming into what would be the final round of the match.

With three of DRG's men storming him, two quick peeks transformed the round into a winnable 2v3 for T1. A massive, quiet lurk from stax netted him two of the final three kills, and Meteor jumped out from hiding for a third and final blow that bookended the match and T1's victory over the Chinese roster.

Too clutch for DRG.

Meteor ended up being the deciding factor for T1 on Sunset, as his 1.34 rating was the third-highest of the match. He also boasted 29 kills, just two shy of BuZz 's 31, and a 172 ADR across a +9 kill differential.

His map two statline was overshadowed only by DH's map one performance. Meteor's teammate accrued two fewer kills and deaths than him, but DH's 13 assists in an equal +9 differential and 170 ADR put him up to a 1.57 rating at the end of Lotus.

While T1 all gave each other room to breathe between the two maps, DRG's top three was the same between Lotus and Sunset: SpiritZ1, Nicc, and Demon1, respectively, were the standouts from the Chinese side.

They were also the only DRG players to finish with a rating over 1 across the match, with the first of the three — SpiritZ1 — actually being the highest-rated of the server with a 1.31 average and a whopping 13 opening kills to four opening deaths.

Maximum clench.

Ultimately, that performance made little of a difference to the end result. DRG's loss also puts it in a trying place for their league slot, as it is battling for 2026 contention with Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #1 WsLeo Huang Pinwei (黄品维) Lysoar Liang Youhao (梁优好) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) at the same time it vies for the world title.

Whichever of the two rosters makes it further at Champions keeps its slot in the 2026 VCT China. If both are eliminated in the same place, which can happen later this week, DRG will be knocked down to Ascension and will have to defend its slot.

T1, though? It's sitting pretty. It's the first time this core records an opening win at an international LAN, which can only bode well for its future.

The Koreans' only international tournament this year was in Thailand. They suffered two losses at that Masters: one to Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #5 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen PROFEK Dawid Święć Derke Nikita Sirmitev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Sayonara Ștefan Mîtcu , in the groups opener, and one to EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #2 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) Jieni7 Zhang Juntai (张君泰) , in the playoffs opener. The team later avenged those two losses, which makes it extra hard to point out any flaws in how Bangkok turned out.

Now, in France, T1 are beginning its prospective title run with a victory. The world saw what a star-studded roster like T1 can do even with defeats looming over it during a tournament run.

Unencumbered by that weight, who really knows how far T1 can go at Champions Paris?