Faker says he voluntarily benched himself from T1’s starting lineup

In an interview with Inven Global today, Faker opened up regarding T1’s roster situation after missing from the competitive League of Legends scene for three weeks. Faker’s return today helped his team secure a decisive win in the battle for the 2021 LCK Spring Split playoffs.

The superstar mid laner said he didn’t feel that his form was good enough to compete when he stepped away from the roster in February and told his coach he “needed some time.” In the interview, Faker praised Clozer, who played in Faker’s place during his absence, for his performance at the time.

T1 signed multiple players during the offseason to build a flexible 10-man roster. While the idea behind it was great, in practice it seemed like T1 had synergy issues with the constant roster changes.

Today’s iteration of the lineup was the 10th one T1 fielded during the season. Four players were part of T1’s 2020 LCK Spring Split domination with the exception of Keria, who was acquired during the 2020 offseason. The team looked much stronger today compared to their previous series, and this might be a good starting point for the upcoming playoffs.

In the interview, Faker attributed the decision behind this roster iteration to coach Daeny and said there’s still more room for the lineup to improve.

“It hadn’t been long since we’ve played with this combination, so there still are some problems with the synergy or macro, but in today’s match, everyone tried hard to make the plays together,” Faker said. “Also, we were able to take a lot of benefits in the early game, so that was the reason we were able to have a swift win.”

T1 (8-7) are currently in fifth place in the standings and have three remaining matches in the current split. While they’re almost locked in for playoffs, they need to make sure to avoid dropping games to increase their chances to qualify.

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