Nongshim RedForce took down T1 in a convincing 2-0 series to continue their 2021 LCK Summer Split domination.
Going into this League of Legends series, T1 was thought to be favored after their dominant series against Gen.G earlier this week. T1, however, wasn’t able to replicate their performance in today’s series by fielding the same roster with Gumayusi as the starting AD carry. NS read them like a book and banned away key picks that helped T1 secure the previous series win. On top of that, NS was picking champions in the first rounds of draft that T1 had a lot of success with, to avoid giving their opponents comfort picks.
The MVP votes went to jungler Peanut and AD carry deokdam in today’s series. Peanut picked Diana in the first match of the series and used her aggressively to invade his opponent and provide a lot of ganks for his team. In teamfights, his ultimates were one of the main reasons why NS was wiping enemies without losing their own champions. The AD carry picked Lucian in the second match and, after being paired with a Yuumi, took over the game by moving swiftly in and out of the laning phase.
In the first match of the series, T1 was holding their ground across the map and was trading blow for blow. Even though Peanut was constantly looking for picks around the map, T1 had good vision and backed away when they saw the opposing jungler going for a gank. On top of that, T1 picked up early dragons while Peanut was focusing on the Rift Herald on the top side. Once the match got to teamfights, however, NS had the superior composition with Peanut’s engages destroying T1 without any issues before picking up the first game win.
In the second match, T1 picked up a similar composition while NS changed it around after key picks such as Gnar and Diana were banned. While T1 build a 2,000 gold lead by seven minutes and seemed in control of the game, NS quickly turned the situation around after a couple of shutdowns on the carries of T1. Deokdam picked up a lot of gold from those shutdowns and took over the game easily with his Lucian pick. The match ended after a 29-minute teamfight win for the Ocean Dragon Soul in favor of NS.
Related: Here are the 2021 LCK Summer Split standings
NS (7-3) will return on the Rift next week with two matches against DWG KIA and KT Rolster. A win against their first opponent would propel them to second place in the standings, while a loss would give room for Afreeca Freecs to catch up to them in the third place.
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