T1 took down Liiv SANDBOX in a clean 3-0 in the first round of the 2021 LCK Summer Split playoffs.
Going into this series, T1 brought back Teddy to the starting roster, who has been absent throughout most of the regular season. He picked up the first MVP vote after a spectacular performance on Ashe, securing the first blood in minutes and landing crucial ultimates later on.
The other two MVP votes were picked up by Faker and Canna, on LeBlanc and Gnar respectively. The legendary mid laner popped off on the assassin, killing enemies left and right and finishing the match with a KDA of 8/1/6, forcing his opponents to ban the champion in the next match. Canna picked up his vote after having game-deciding ultimates on Gnar in the last match, securing the clean sweep for his team.
The first match opened up with a dominant performance from the T1 roster. They picked up a couple of kills in the bottom lane and then snowballed out of control with their engage-heavy composition. LSB got obliterated throughout most of the match, picking up only two towers and a dragon before losing the match in 26 minutes.
Going into the second match, LSB banned away three crucial picks from the T1’s first victory, Azir, Ashe, and Leona. T1 picked up LeBlanc for Faker instead, and another strong bot lane duo in Aphelios and Braum. While T1 picked up an early lead once again, LSB had a scaling composition that was able to defend for quite a long time. T1 funneled resources into picking up the Infernal Dragon Soul and two Barons before being able to secure the second match victory.
The last match of the series wasn’t as clean as the previous two with T1 throwing their advantage a couple of times. A strong teamfighting composition with Gnar, Orianna, and Leona did not let them down, however, and they were able to easily win teamfights to secure the 3-0 sweep.
T1 will face Gen.G on Sunday, Aug. 22 at 3am CT. Tune in to see if they can maintain their current form and pick up another clean sweep against their opponents to advance to the finals and have a shot at another LCK title.
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