First Stand 2025 faces “dark” prospects because T1
In the current season, Riot Games has had a bold travel when creating a new international tournament called First Stand 2025. This is a tournament that includes the championship teams in the LTA, LEC, LCK, LPL and LCP regional tournaments. Which region of the First Stand 2025 champion will have an additional capacity to the branch of MSI this year without playing from the boot stage. By the end of February 26, there were 3 teams including HLE, TL and CFO, which were eligible to attend the First Stand 2025 after winning the championship in their regional tournament. Meanwhile, with early elimination in the LCK Cup 2025, T1 will be absent in this tournament.
HLE, TL and CFO are the first 3 teams eligible to attend First Stand 2025
Despite being a large international tournament, First Stand 2025 is not highly appreciated by many experts in terms of communication. Even the Sohu page of the LPL area also said that this tournament will have the number of viewers “bottom” compared to international tournaments in the past 2-3 years. The reason given is the absence of T1 in general and Faker in particular will make this tournament receive little attention from the audience.
The absence of T1 is expected to make the attraction of First Stand 2025 significantly decreased
Indeed this is a reasonable judgment when the LCK Cup 2025 is extremely clear evidence of the communication attraction of T1 and Faker. It should be known that in this tournament, the match between T1 and HLE is the encounter that attracts the highest viewers. Moreover, 3/4 matches that are statistics are the highest number of viewers in the tournament also have the presence of T1 (the remaining confrontation is the final between Gen.G and HLE).
3/4 matches with the highest number of viewers at the LCK Cup 2025 have the presence of T1
It should be known that before the 2025 season took place, T1 broke out a no small transfer “drama” related to Zeus. By the time of entering the season, the incident Smash was suddenly promoted to the main squad but had an inappropriate attitude that made T1 become the focus of attention. Therefore, when T1 is absent at First Stand 2025, of course, the attraction for the audience will greatly decrease.
Absent T1, First Stand 2025 is about to become Riot's failure test
Besides the media attraction, the meaning of the First Stand 2025 itself is also a relatively large question mark. Despite the reputation of being an international tournament, it consists of only 5 teams with the goal of giving its area 1 more in the branch. In fact, areas like LCK or LPL have strong representatives superior to the rest of the areas. Therefore, they can take the capacity to the branch easily, so the priority from the First Stand championship does not really mean too much.
The meaning of First Stand 2025 is really a big question mark
In addition, only 5 teams attending the First Stand 2025 also made the competition of this tournament significantly decreased when many strong teams were not allowed to attend. As a result, although it has not been officially held, this tournament is facing the risk of becoming Riot's failure test in the 2025 season. Even, they can even remove this tournament in the next season if the First Stand 2025 is frustrated in terms of expertise in the near future.