The replies to this are so funny because if you actually did watch T1 all year then you know this is true but seemingly so many T1 fans only dial in for internationals so they don’t know or don’t care. LCK Cup and the start of Round 1-2 was plagued by Smash/Guma + level generally being low. They were completely dysfunctional and struggled to find a clear identity. By the time Guma was made starter most of Round 1-2, it was clear GENG and HLE were the front runners in the LCK with no debate. Their final series here they were 2-0’d by Nongshim (Doran getting manhandled by Kingen) pretty convincingly and placed 3rd with a 1 series lead on 4th-6th. There were a few signs of life but were often blotted out by large and avoidable mistakes ie 3rd round robin vs HLE Game 1 and the sequence before and after 3rd dragon and 3rd round robin vs GENG game1 where they threw the game on an over chase at top t2 tower Road to MSI they had looked weak enough and KT had just swept DK and NS that people felt KT *could* beat them. They went on to beat a very blatantly mental boomed HLE after they got reverse swept by GENG to qualify for MSI and with HLE playing so uncharacteristically poor it was hard to glean anything from the series. At MSI they got taken to 5 games by CFO in a series they easily could have been 3-0’d in were it not for Kaiwing face checking on a baron siege push + game 5 draft choke. After that they developed quickly and started performing great to finish 2nd but it did come a little out of left field considering how little they showed to qualify AND on arrival almost losing to CFO. Can’t speak on EWC, I didn’t watch it. In Round 3-5 they were solid finally but still had some clear issues here (Poor laning from Faker and inconsistent drafting.) In Season playoffs this continues and they could have easily lost to DK if Aiming didn’t randomly walk into a Blitz hook in full vision mid for no good reason in game 5. HLE wiped them 3-0 and they lost out to GenG in 5. Domestically this team was incredibly inconsistent, qual’d to MSI off the back of a mentally boomed HLE and finished lower than a KT team that at the time was still just BDD, Cuzz and 3 wards. I have my issues with the worlds format and don’t think they had to do much to make it to finals outside of the AL series (would have lost here too without Faker’s probable best game of the year) but it should be a testament to their resilience as a team that they’ve made it to finals if you’re gonna say something about them. However seeing them make it to finals over teams who have had significantly more consistent years with higher skill floor and in some cases ceiling is the jarring part, whether you’re a neutral or indeed a hater. T1 has been far from the best team of the year for about 90% of it.