T1 “paved the way” for LCK but made a mistake
When T1 gave the preparatory and Smash Gumayusi in the LCK Cup 2025 phase, many viewers said it was a tactical replacement. There are even many opinions ready to “drown” the defending gunner of the two consecutive Worlds to protect Smash. However, gradually, it was realized: It was the mistake of T1 when Smash showed that he was not enough to replace his elder. And recently, a series of LCK teams “learned” T1 has clarified these mistakes.
Pyosik became the next name that was pushed to the preparatory and then the Challengers team.
Accordingly, recently, Pyosik became the next name to fight at the Challengers and also the third World Championship to be pushed to the preparatory, after Gumayusi and Juhan. The name Pyosik also added to the list of LCK players posted on the preparatory or pushed down to Challengers in the 2025 season, previously included many famous players such as Teddy (DRX), Fisher (NS), Bulldog (DNF) … The total number of players who had to sit on the bench or be pushed down to Challengers has reached 10 people.
T1 started the trend of replacing people this year but they themselves showed that no team was strong and personnel were unstable.
But there is an indisputable fact: the changing players belong to the groups of teams that are only in the middle or at the end of the rankings in the past seasons. Only T1 and part of KT Rolster are exceptions. But as many experts have said: Only the teams are too unstable, and the level is not strong enough to find ways to replace people to expect breakthroughs.
Meanwhile, the two most stable teams are HLE and Gen.G. Partly because these teams probably have no quality factors to replace any star. But the more important part: Stability is a prerequisite for a successful League of Legends team.
Teams like HLE have no one to replace and they probably do not want any disturbance.
The replacement of people has never been good for professional League of Legends, T1 is a typical example
It is T1 that also shows that: they only partly revive, when BHL sought to make the current squad capture and promote their abilities, overcome weaknesses rather than find people instead. Unlike other sports, League of Legends needs absolute cohesion and qualifications and training time of the official – reserve player is very different.
Even in the past, the players changed alternately were also the top superstars and they were reserve just because the squad had only 5 people. Easyhoon or Blank are all top superstars and their reserve, simply Faker – Bengi is the duo that no one can replace it.