JD Gaming and T1 taught their opponents a lesson in the quarterfinals and secured a top 4 finish at the 2023 LoL World Championship with dominant victories.
KT Rolster managed to surprise JDG in the first game and take a 1-0 lead, automatically reminding us of the previous day's match where Bilibili Gaming surprised Gen.G and won with JDG the main favorite of the competition. This time though we didn't see another draw, JDG fought back with two quick and convincing wins in the second and third game, while the fourth was more uncertain, but JDG celebrated carried by the great play of Ruler who played 8-0-3 on Kai'Si and once again showed how good a move his signing was for the Chinese champions.
In the last quarter-final, T1 surprised us with an incredibly dominant game in a match in which they completely overwhelmed LNG, from whom much more was expected. How dominant T1 was is best shown by the fact that for all three games they did not give up a single dragon to the opponent and that each time they took the Dragon Soul buff before the end of half an hour of the game.
From a team that at one point had a 1-7 run in the LCK during the summer season while Faker was injured, to a team that stomps everything in front of them, T1 has shown that they are indeed the last hope of Korea and the rest of the world in the face of an onslaught of Chinese teams that have crushed the rest of the competition.
Faker and T1 are still undefeated against an LPL team in Bo5 matches at the World Championships, and if the tradition continues, their fourth title is smiling. Of course, all traditions must be broken at that time, and if anyone has the potential to do so, it is Ruler and JDG who have won both seasons of the LPL league this year and MSI 2023 and are well on their way to becoming the first team in the history of LoL esports to win all competitions in one calendar year.
The semi-final matches are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Bilibili and Weibo are the first to take the stage, while a day later JDG and T1 meet in a match that many are already calling the final before the final.
