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Team Liquid bowed out of the Mid-Season Invitational in the final six after they lost to T1 in the lower bracket quarter-finals.
T1's lower bracket run lives on after the defending world champions eliminated Team Liquid from the Mid-Season Invitational in the final six of the tournament. After its 3-1 victory over TL, T1 is set to face G2 Esports again at MSI with the LEC champions looking for revenge after its first-round loss in the Bracket Stage.
With this being TL's first MSI appearance in four years, it's hard to find much fault in its performance given that it was the first MSI for three-fifths of its starting line-up. They finish in the shared fifth/sixth place alongside the LPL's Top Esports, who lost rather convincingly against G2 just yesterday.
TL was led by its most seasoned veterans, Eon-Yeong “Impact” Jeong and Yong-In “CoreJJ” Jo, two former LCK stars who are more than familiar with T1. Impact was most known for winning Worlds as part of the former SK Telekom T1 squad back in season three. As for CoreJJ, he was part of the now-defunct Samsung Galaxy squad that swept T1 in the grand finals of Worlds 2017.
The first game was undoubtedly the easiest of the series for T1 as TL took a while to get things going. It wasn't the most kill-heavy match of the series but it did show T1 at its best, which was taking objectives efficiently after a successful team fight that mostly went its way. And despite dying the most amongst his teammates with three deaths, Choi “Zeus” Woo-je proved why he's one of the best toplaners with a stellar performance on Camille.
And just when you thought it was going to be another sweep, TL came out swinging in the second game against T1's triple-marksman line-up. It was largely a back-and-forth game as both teams were able to take the lead on separate occasions. Much like its other performances throughout MSI, T1 has been prone to making mistakes and TL was able to capitalise on said errors. This allowed Sean “Yeon” Sung on Samira to get some crucial shutdowns against T1 but unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
Despite slightly throwing during the mid-game, T1 was still able to come back and put themselves on match-point in the series. This was backed up by another great performance from Zeus, this time on Vayne while Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong was a crucial spearhead in T1's team fight against TL as his Varus went 3/0/10.
With T1 going 2-0 against TL, it was a must-win game three for the LCS' last hope and they did just that with a resounding victory to ensure they at least didn't get swept. Both Zeus and Gumayusi stuck with the same champions as game two, it didn't quite work out for them this time. Eain “APA” Stearns was able to show what he was made of as his Taliyah proved to be one of the main components in TL's win alongside Yeon's Kalista.
As it was looking likely to come down to the wire, T1 put any hope the LCS had in getting a miracle victory over the LCK to rest with a dominant performance from Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee. Just when you thought T1 would be down and out, who else but the four-time world champion to lift his team up as he has done countless times throughout his career. Faker's Orianna had a KDA of 9/0/4, which meant that he was the only player out of 10 to not die a single time in the game.
The fourth game was also the shortest of the series as T1 went for the jugular as Zeus' third-straight match on Vayne proved fruitful with his seven kills, four deaths, and four assists. Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon also had a great game on Poppy with two kills, one death, and 12 assThisd this was enough for T1 to hammer the final nail into TL's coffin and make it into the final four of MSI.
