LCK Cup 2025 and T1 are "victim" by Riot

T1's familiar playing style is almost eliminated

Applying many new mechanisms at the same time, Riot makes it difficult for many teams. Of course, the players' task is still to adapt as quickly as possible. But clearly, the “comeback” factor in each game is no longer there and maybe, only after the first phase of the match, the audience can know which team is the winner. The recent “victim” is T1.

In particular, the “going upstream” style of play, making the most of the opponent's mistakes to find opportunities to turn the situation around, is a characteristic of T1 in difficult times. And with the Atakhan buff, Riot almost completely eliminated one of the strengths of the 2024 World Championship champion.

Let's try to set up a situation: Faker creates a breakthrough with a Shurima Shuffle or Sound Wave Command situation, but the opponent is not defeated but simply returns to the ancient pedestal faster. Failure will almost certainly happen later for T1 and there will not be another “miracle” phase.

Not only T1 but LCK Cup 2025 are also “victims”

While the LPL had a pilot season, the LCK had to apply Fearless Draft at the same time as the big changes that Riot brought to League of Legends. The combination of Fearless Draft and the Atakhan buff is making professional matches quite… “one color”.

“Strange” champions have not appeared too much yet, except for a few exceptions such as Yasuo or Xerath who have recently returned to the professional arena. But only 2 out of 65 generals were used (as of after the T1 – DK match) which is still too few compared to the audience's expectations.

The scenario of all past matches has been to go to 3 games, and the teams will reserve their forte picks and bans in the most decisive game. In addition, when entering the match, the team on the Blue side will have a clear advantage. Because the Atakhan buff appears near the Baron cave area and this is a position that Blue teams have an easier time controlling, while the Red side will have an easier time controlling the Dragon buff.

Because of the Atakhan buff, the ability to “snowball” once the team has an advantage is further enhanced. According to Gol.gg statistics, the Blue team's win rate is 83.3% – an extremely high number after the past 4 matches. Only once was a team unable to take advantage of Atakhan, which was OKSavingsBank BRION in the match against DRX.

Perhaps in the future, Riot will have to recalculate new mechanisms in League of Legends, especially the professional arena. They had to quickly edit Atakhan after receiving too much negative feedback. However, everything may still not be completely resolved.