On June 19, T1 defeated kt Rolster 2-1 in match 1, day 5 of the 2022 LCK Summer split. After losing game 1 to KT, both of T1’s victories were comeback victories, as both games remained neck to neck until the very end.

After the match, Inven met with the support player for T1, Ryu “Keria” Min-seok. Even after the victory, Keria’s expression was full of disappointment, as he explained how he and the team could’ve done things better against KT.

“We’re relieved that we won, but our performance was very disappointing. From the draft in game 1 to how we should’ve kept the lead in game 3, we were done in by our opponent's plays that we honestly should've anticipated. Very disappointing.”

T1 flexed Camille into the support role, while drafting Kassadin-Diana as the two AP threats of the team. However, the early game lead that KT had snowballed into defeat for T1. Even so, Keria said that the game 1 winnable if the team composition was “executed well”.

“After the durability patch, it felt like any champion can have a decent laning phase, as long as the champion functions well. That’s why we prepared Camille support, and we even had great results with her during practice. We didn’t plan to play her tonight, but we ended up playing her anyway. Looking back, I don’t think it was a Camille support angle tonight. We never tried the Diana-Kassadin duo, but we thought that the duo was playable, so we tried it.

We weren’t too confident in our team comp, but we felt that the game was winnable if we played well. This isn’t really a good sign. After game 1, we just played our standard game, where one lane doesn’t need babysitting, while the other champions were scaling champions.”

There were moments where members of T1 got caught out at the side lanes during game 3. It felt like a domino effect, as things fell apart after someone got picked off.

“Usually, I’m the one who makes a lot of calls regarding side lanes. Not only was the tempo slow, but there were also a lot of champions that were difficult to side lane macro, so as long as I was on top of the enemy movement, we were able to avoid the picks. However, ever since MSI, there were more champions that thrived in the side lanes, but the tempo’s also faster as well. In the end, it was hard for me to keep track of the enemy movements by myself, so I think this is something everyone needs to do.”

T1 only played two matches so far, but many have said that they looked disappointing. Keria was also very objective on the team’s performance, stating that he’s not happy with it.

“The quality of our gameplay is very low. I hate it. We’ll need to play smarter. We need to be good at the things we’re good at, and not give any room for the enemy to make good plays.”

Furthermore, he expressed his disappointment of how the current role of the support player doesn’t fit his playstyle. “In the current meta, it’s hard for the support to make plays on their own. It’s different from my playstyle, and it makes me a bit angry. It’s hard to make something happen through roams or tower pressure. Right now, the support’s role is to follow around the jungler, prioritize objectives, and take care of the carries to hit their power spikes. Almost like a nanny." 

Lastly, he shared a word with his fans and closed the interview:

“Winning this split is an obvious goal for the Summer, but with the way we're playing, I can’t say whether or not we can win Summer. We’ll need to work harder to fix our mistakes so that we can be the championship team for the Summer. Thank you to everyone that came out to the fan meet. They only happen when we win, so we’ll need to continue winning. We’ll make sure to improve our gameplay so both the fans and I can enjoy the fan meets.”