Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated
ORG OVERVIEW
-T1 is a South Korean esports org that was founded in 2003 as a venture between SK Telecom and Comcast
-They first entered into esports by signing a Starcraft team, previous Team Orion, and began their growth from there.
-Currently T1 compete in Valorant, League of Legends, Wild Rift, SSBU, and an Overwatch team that serves as an academy roster for the Philadelphia Fusion
-T1 are best known as being the most successful League of Legends organization of all time, with 3 world championships, and 5 finals appearances. They are also the home of Faker, who I don’t think I need to give background on.
-Despite being a South Korean org, all of their activity in VALORANT until now has been in North America
ROSTER HISTORY
2020
-T1 were the first organization in North America to sign a Valorant player with Brax (interestingly, he was signed over a month before the game entered Beta). AZK and Skadoodle would join shortly after, recreating the infamous IBP core from 2014.
-Crashies and Victor (then known as food) would round out the roster and enter the ignition series as one of the top prospective teams
-T1 would have a strong start in the ignition series, often making it out of groups, but would fall off throughout the summer. At Pop Flash, the final ignition series, they went 0-2 in groups, signaling the need for a change.
-Crashies and Food would both depart for NV, DaZeD, another ex-IBP player, would join as IGL. Sayaplayer, then known as Spyder, would round out the roster going into First Strike.
-At First Strike, T1 fought their way into playoffs, taking down Dignitas, Immortals, and Cloud9 in the process. They would lose to 100T in the quarterfinals, ending their playoff run.
2021
-In the first VCT open qual of the year, T1 would go out in the Ro16 to Andbox. Going into the second qualifier, AZK retired, and Brax would join TSM as a 6th man. Autimatic and curry would be the placements. The roster for the majority of the 2021 season would be:
-autimatic
-curry
-skadoodle
-dazed
-spyder-Unfortunately, the squad still would not have any luck, failing to qualify for masters. In the second challengers split, they found themselves in a lower bracket match against Sentinels, and were 4 rounds away from sending them home on Split (what a world that would've been)
-In the break ahead of Stage 3, T1 released DaZed and brought Brax back from TSM. Spyder was also taking time off to recover from an injury, so dawn was promoted from the academy roster.
-T1 still would not find any success in 2021, ending the season without accumulating any circuit points. At this point, a major rebuild was ahead for 2022
-Skadoodle, autimatic, and spyder were all released. Thwifo was brought in from XSET and Steel from T1, pwny from Divize, and seven from 100T’s sub spot.
-The squad played several NSG weeklies and offseason tournaments, with promising results. Going into 2022, T1’s roster would be:
-Steel
-Thwifo
-Seven
-Pwny
-Curry2022
-In the first VCT challengers of the year, T1 would forfeit their match against TSM due to their coach communicating with players during the match (help sewers). They also failed to qualify in the next qualifier, putting T1 out of competition until May.
-During their break, seven would leave for TSM, and their coach would be formally released. Dynamic would be brought in as an unofficial 5th.
-The squad still played many offseason tournaments such as Knights monthlies, with fairly standard results, but no wins.
-In the second set of qualifiers, T1 again failed to make it into the group stage, ending their VCT season in May. It was around this point that the planned move to Korea began to develop
-curry was traded to C9 for Xeta and Autumn, both Korean natives. Munchkin was also signed from Crazy Raccoon.
-Ban would join from Knights in August 2021. The team would play two matches together, winning both convincingly.
ROSTER MOVES
-Shortly after Champions, it was announced T1 had made it into partnership for the pacific league. As a result, thwifo and pwny were both released. Thwifo has since gone on to join NRG as a 6th. Steel is currently listed as inactive, and has no place in the 2023 roster.
-Carpe and BeomJun were both signed straight from the Korean ranked leaderboards. Neither of them have any stats on VLR.
-Lastly, Sayaplayer has returned to T1 to round out their roster. Stunner was also brought in as a coach. The players are currently bootcamping in North America ahead of the VCT kickoff tournament
-T1’s roster for the 2023 pacific league is:
-ban
-xeta
-Munchkin
-Sayaplayer
-BeomJun
-CarpeI apologize for the lack of org overviews lately, I’ve been slammed with finals and I just got the flu. However, I will be finishing out this project before the year is over, so stay tuned.
ALL OTHER ORGS
PRX: https://www.vlr.gg/159058/prx-org-overview
DRX: https://www.vlr.gg/159565/drx-org-overview
-https://www.vlr.gg/157308/franchised-orgs-megathread
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