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T1 What Are You Doing?
Jan. 24th, 2025 04:26 pmToday I bring terrible news that has me and many others extremely upset. I was having a good day enjoying the Universe League finale (kinda crazy lineup btw) with my lovely friends when I got the news.
Gumayusi will not be playing on the T1 main roster.
Maybe a little bit of an exaggeration but it is still a reason to be upset. I'll start from the very beginning on how the events unfolded. T1 had a game against KT today, and both are sponsored by different telecommunication companies so the turnout for these matches is usually pretty big. The whole thing is promoted as the "Telecom Wars" and it was especially competitive last season. I was very excited to watch this in the morning after Universe League until I learned that Guma wasn't going to be playing, and instead, T1's LCKCL (rookie league) bottom laner Smash would be filling in. Now it is not unusual for teams to pull up CL players to replace a main roster player while they are sick, but these things are announced at least a few hours ahead of the game. For example, DRX's Teddy has been in the hospital with the flu for a while now, and at least a day ahead of time DRX announced that LazyFeel from the CL team would be filling in for the time being. Well in Guma's case no announcement was made, in fact, everyone was expecting Guma to show up until Smash walked on stage.
Now I don't hate Smash. Actually, I really like him! He's good friends with Rekkles and I enjoyed watching him in the few LCKCL games I tuned into. At 18 years old, he's just able to play in the LCK, and making his LCK debut on what I assume is such short notice must be scary. Considering all of that, he played really well and actually won Player of the Match (POM). I expect him to be a great ADC in the future.
Now that I've made it clear I don't hate Smash, we go onto the real issue. At first, everyone thought Guma just got sick right before the game and they didn't have time to make an announcement. It was not until after the winning press conference where head coach Kkoma said (translated) "We are trying various things in the LCK Cup to leave behind the long LCK regular season and leave behind the best data possible". Ok, what? That doesn't really make much sense at all, and naturally, reporters asked why there wasn't an announcement made earlier. To that, he said, "In a case like today, when it comes to entry announcements and such, I personally don't know what parts I should leave out". Again, what? Still, I just assumed it was a temporary sub situation, all be it a very odd one. That was until the fan meet information changed.
At "home" games (kinda just an arbitrary name because all teams play at the same venue) many teams do little fan meetings of around 100 people, 20 per player. Initially, those selected would rank what player they wanted to meet on a Google Form. This form had Doran, Oner, Faker, Gumayusi, and Keria listed until today. Now instead of players, it is just "Top, Jungle, Mid, ADC, and Support", meaning that instead of picking a player to meet you would pick a lane. This insinuates that more roster swaps are going to happen in the future. Guma went on the T1 equivalent of Bubble to comfort fans, saying he was really upset by the news as well but he did not cry and will come back stronger. Update: just learned he didn't know until right before the game. That makes me wonder when he found out about this news, and definitely makes it seem more permanent.
No one is happy about this, especially not T1 fans from 2021. Very very brief context that is when T1 had a 10-man roster and no one really knew when they were going to play and they got benched for no reason. This was an experimental roster, but due to the former head coach, a lot of players suffered a lot mentally. Oner specifically talked about how terrible it made him feel. That roster didn't even do that well because of the mental toll it took on every. Plus, certain players have better synergies and need time to work out the kinks in their playstyle together. This roster didn't allow that. The current situation just looks a little too familiar and no one wants to go back to that time. As my lovely Twitter mutual put it, "died 2021 born 2025 welcome back russian roulette roster".
Many non-T1 fans are criticizing T1 fans for being upset about this. At least from what I have seen and how I feel, I feel justified in being upset. A lot of the LCK runs a little like Kpop fans, but honestly, that is just female fan culture. Everyone understands that rosters will change and are never guaranteed to stay together, especially if a player is underperforming. If T1 found a player significantly better than Guma, or any other player, I would not be shocked if they were replaced. Yes, I would be upset, but that is just how it goes. The thing is Guma has been playing fine. He isn't hypercarrying but he honestly never did. He served as mental support and allowed Keria to flex-pick champions. Now that Zeus isn't on the team, there really isn't a hyper carry on the team. They have still been doing really well as a team though. But again, they have only played 5 games as this new roster, shouldn't they get more time instead of subbing someone out? I feel like fans have the right to be upset at the coaching staff for making this choice, especially without an announcement and when Guma has been playing perfectly fine.
Anyways, that really is it as of right now. The news is under 12 hours old so if anything new happens I will update either this post or make a new one if the news is that significant. T1 has a game tonight at 1am so lets see if Guma is back (please be).
EDIT: It seems pretty permanent as of the 25th. Cheering slogans were changed to include Smash. They have a game in 2 hours so I will update but Guma was not in practice so...
Gumayusi will not be playing on the T1 main roster.
Maybe a little bit of an exaggeration but it is still a reason to be upset. I'll start from the very beginning on how the events unfolded. T1 had a game against KT today, and both are sponsored by different telecommunication companies so the turnout for these matches is usually pretty big. The whole thing is promoted as the "Telecom Wars" and it was especially competitive last season. I was very excited to watch this in the morning after Universe League until I learned that Guma wasn't going to be playing, and instead, T1's LCKCL (rookie league) bottom laner Smash would be filling in. Now it is not unusual for teams to pull up CL players to replace a main roster player while they are sick, but these things are announced at least a few hours ahead of the game. For example, DRX's Teddy has been in the hospital with the flu for a while now, and at least a day ahead of time DRX announced that LazyFeel from the CL team would be filling in for the time being. Well in Guma's case no announcement was made, in fact, everyone was expecting Guma to show up until Smash walked on stage.
Now I don't hate Smash. Actually, I really like him! He's good friends with Rekkles and I enjoyed watching him in the few LCKCL games I tuned into. At 18 years old, he's just able to play in the LCK, and making his LCK debut on what I assume is such short notice must be scary. Considering all of that, he played really well and actually won Player of the Match (POM). I expect him to be a great ADC in the future.
Now that I've made it clear I don't hate Smash, we go onto the real issue. At first, everyone thought Guma just got sick right before the game and they didn't have time to make an announcement. It was not until after the winning press conference where head coach Kkoma said (translated) "We are trying various things in the LCK Cup to leave behind the long LCK regular season and leave behind the best data possible". Ok, what? That doesn't really make much sense at all, and naturally, reporters asked why there wasn't an announcement made earlier. To that, he said, "In a case like today, when it comes to entry announcements and such, I personally don't know what parts I should leave out". Again, what? Still, I just assumed it was a temporary sub situation, all be it a very odd one. That was until the fan meet information changed.
At "home" games (kinda just an arbitrary name because all teams play at the same venue) many teams do little fan meetings of around 100 people, 20 per player. Initially, those selected would rank what player they wanted to meet on a Google Form. This form had Doran, Oner, Faker, Gumayusi, and Keria listed until today. Now instead of players, it is just "Top, Jungle, Mid, ADC, and Support", meaning that instead of picking a player to meet you would pick a lane. This insinuates that more roster swaps are going to happen in the future. Guma went on the T1 equivalent of Bubble to comfort fans, saying he was really upset by the news as well but he did not cry and will come back stronger. Update: just learned he didn't know until right before the game. That makes me wonder when he found out about this news, and definitely makes it seem more permanent.
No one is happy about this, especially not T1 fans from 2021. Very very brief context that is when T1 had a 10-man roster and no one really knew when they were going to play and they got benched for no reason. This was an experimental roster, but due to the former head coach, a lot of players suffered a lot mentally. Oner specifically talked about how terrible it made him feel. That roster didn't even do that well because of the mental toll it took on every. Plus, certain players have better synergies and need time to work out the kinks in their playstyle together. This roster didn't allow that. The current situation just looks a little too familiar and no one wants to go back to that time. As my lovely Twitter mutual put it, "died 2021 born 2025 welcome back russian roulette roster".
Many non-T1 fans are criticizing T1 fans for being upset about this. At least from what I have seen and how I feel, I feel justified in being upset. A lot of the LCK runs a little like Kpop fans, but honestly, that is just female fan culture. Everyone understands that rosters will change and are never guaranteed to stay together, especially if a player is underperforming. If T1 found a player significantly better than Guma, or any other player, I would not be shocked if they were replaced. Yes, I would be upset, but that is just how it goes. The thing is Guma has been playing fine. He isn't hypercarrying but he honestly never did. He served as mental support and allowed Keria to flex-pick champions. Now that Zeus isn't on the team, there really isn't a hyper carry on the team. They have still been doing really well as a team though. But again, they have only played 5 games as this new roster, shouldn't they get more time instead of subbing someone out? I feel like fans have the right to be upset at the coaching staff for making this choice, especially without an announcement and when Guma has been playing perfectly fine.
Anyways, that really is it as of right now. The news is under 12 hours old so if anything new happens I will update either this post or make a new one if the news is that significant. T1 has a game tonight at 1am so lets see if Guma is back (please be).
EDIT: It seems pretty permanent as of the 25th. Cheering slogans were changed to include Smash. They have a game in 2 hours so I will update but Guma was not in practice so...
