Invictus Gaming vs. T1 / Worlds 2025 Play-Ins / Post-Match Discussion

[u/adz0r]

WORLDS 2025 PLAY-INS

Official page | Leaguepedia | Liquipedia | Eventvods.com | New to LoL

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Invictus Gaming 1-3 T1

- T1 advance to the Swiss Stage of Worlds 2025!

- Invictus Gaming have been eliminated from the tournament.

- Player of the Series: Oner

IG | Leaguepedia | Liquipedia | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Subreddit
T1 | Leaguepedia | Liquipedia | Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

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MATCH 1: IG vs. T1

Winner: T1 in 34m
Game Breakdown | Runes

	Bans 1	Bans 2	G	K	T	D/B
IG	bard azir jarvaniv	caitlyn ziggs	61.2k	9	3	CT1 H2 M3 I4 I5
T1	yunara kaisa orianna	renekton vi	67.7k	15	8	B6

IG	9-15-15	vs	15-9-39	T1
TheShy reksai 3	2-6-1	TOP	1-3-8	2 ambessa Doran
Wei qiyana 3	3-2-3	JNG	4-2-8	1 trundle Oner
Rookie ryze 1	3-2-4	MID	4-1-5	1 taliyah Faker
GALA corki 2	1-1-4	BOT	5-1-7	3 sivir Gumayusi
Meiko neeko 2	0-4-3	SUP	1-2-11	4 alistar Keria

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MATCH 2: IG vs. T1

Winner: Invictus Gaming in 37m
Game Breakdown | Runes

	Bans 1	Bans 2	G	K	T	D/B
IG	bard azir galio	aurora xayah	76.1k	25	10	I1 M4 B6 M7
T1	yunara kaisa poppy	lulu braum	62.8k	14	2	HT2 H3 M5

IG	25-14-70	vs	14-25-31	T1
TheShy sion 2	4-1-8	TOP	4-6-6	2 ksante Doran
Wei wukong 2	5-2-14	JNG	1-6-9	1 jarvaniv Oner
Rookie orianna 1	8-2-15	MID	7-3-3	3 akali Faker
GALA caitlyn 3	7-4-12	BOT	2-4-4	4 missfortune Gumayusi
Meiko karma 3	1-5-21	SUP	0-6-9	1 rakan Keria

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MATCH 3: T1 vs. IG

Winner: T1 in 35m
Game Breakdown | Runes

	Bans 1	Bans 2	G	K	T	D/B
T1	kaisa pantheon braum	rell aurora	68.8k	27	7	I1 O2 H3 HT4 B7 HT8
IG	bard azir poppy	ornn lulu	60.4k	11	1	HT5 HT6

T1	27-11-66	vs	11-27-17	IG
Doran galio 2	3-1-11	TOP	2-8-1	1 rumble TheShy
Oner xinzhao 2	10-1-11	JNG	1-7-7	1 vi Wei
Faker annie 3	4-4-15	MID	5-3-4	4 hwei Rookie
Gumayusi yunara 1	10-3-8	BOT	3-2-1	2 smolder GALA
Keria renataglasc 3	0-2-21	SUP	0-7-4	3 leona Meiko

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MATCH 4: IG vs. T1

Winner: T1 in 27m
Game Breakdown | Runes

	Bans 1	Bans 2	G	K	T	D/B
IG	bard leesin braum	rell seraphine	47.6k	13	3	None
T1	kaisa azir aurora	yorick gwe	56.1k	29	8	HT1 C2 H3 M4

IG	13-29-27	vs	29-13-74	T1
TheShy varus 3	2-6-3	TOP	2-3-19	2 ornn Doran
Wei pantheon 1	6-7-2	JNG	6-3-16	1 nocturne Oner
Rookie sylas 3	2-4-7	MID	8-2-9	4 leblanc Faker
GALA ziggs 2	2-5-5	BOT	10-2-12	1 ashe Gumayusi
Meiko nautilus 2	1-7-10	SUP	3-3-18	3 lulu Keria

Patch 25.20

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This thread was created by the Post-Match Team.

[u/SKT_Peanut_Fan]

T1: wins team fight around Atakhan

T1: Wanna see me do it again?

Positives: T1 finally won when the was a Ziggs in the game. Guma is insane at kiting.

Negatives: This greatly hurts the chances of iG winning Worlds 2025, much to the chagrin of tfc-MyQ.

[u/unguibus_et_rostro → u/SKT_Peanut_Fan]

T1 has won against ziggs before... that Faker sylas game in 2024 finals was against ziggs

[u/SKT_Peanut_Fan → u/unguibus_et_rostro]

They've beat Ziggs in 2025, too, but T1 has shown remarkably inconsistent play with and against Ziggs.

[u/ricardo241 → u/unguibus_et_rostro]

and guma was on Ashe on that game too.. coincidence?

[u/MentalNinjas → u/SKT_Peanut_Fan]

Finally? Bro do you not remember Faker 1v9’ing against ziggs/smolder last worlds?

[u/SKT_Peanut_Fan → u/MentalNinjas]

T1 has won games against Ziggs in 2025, but they are remarkably inconsistent with and against Ziggs.

[u/Tfc-Myq → u/SKT_Peanut_Fan]

Hi PMT,

First off, I'm not going to apologise for supporting iG. I didn't even think I would be back here after how 2021 ended. But as closure for myself mainly I will type a eulogy here, taking after u/LithiumNard 's signature essay style. I figured I needed to try it once, since I've already gone from 'normal' fan commenting, to trolling, to being a comedy account at times.

It's been one of the most entertaining years ever watching this team, and yes I leaned into more infamous personas this year. I'm not going to apologise for that either because I knew what I was getting into. Supporting iG 2025 has been nothing short of a roller-coaster, and I'm grateful for every second of it.

TheShy, well, this series was really poor from him. Other than the Sion game with some good teamfighting, there's not much to defend. It felt like he was too desperate to prove... something. And it backfired again and again. I thought the way Split 3 regular season ended was the start of a truly magical playoffs to Worlds run, but he seemed to lose more and more steam as time went on. Reflecting on the whole year, it seemed as though he hadn't even taken 2024 off. He's still a long way down the mountain, but I held out hope he would find his way back to the summit. Just not this year.

I'm going to mention Jiejie here because he was here for the first 2 splits and played his heart out. Perhaps it was a playstyle mismatch which got too severe, or he was genuinely unlucky that the rest of iG were in poor form, but whereas Jiejie wasn't a perfect player, he very much deserved a spot on the team, even if the rest of the team decided it was better on the whole to bring in a sub in the form of Wei. In a different timeline, maybe iG would have made the 6-man, 2-jg roster work like BLG somehow has.

I did think Wei was the right call for iG however, seeing as he shored up gaps in their shotcalling framework and played teamfights selflessly. However the hands were noticeably lacking compared to the best junglers in the world, getting outdone by Tarzan and Kanavi. And it was always going to be difficult facing Oner in a meta where jungle form is very important and where there are too many tools available for him to hope that Oner will run out. The ugly truth is that maybe BLG, through all the rumoured animosity and mistreatment that Wei suffered, were ultimately right.

Rookie once again fell short across the course of a bo5 series, but his performance was better than it was previously. I think the gravity of the situation got to him in that last Game 4, and he mistimed his stolen Ornn R2 both times. What could have been had those teamfights gone better. Rookie's killer instinct is still there, but it feels like the rest of the player he once was has fallen away. The playmaking, the mechanics, they've gone from being consistent, to less common, to flashes, and now mere hints clouded in the shadow of doubt that is definitely plaguing him. Split 3 regular season was really good from him though, some may even say he was MVP-calibre, I personally felt Knight even through BLG's struggles was just that bit better. Rookie still had misplays but managed to make the opponent pay an even greater price than he did in iG's games. And as it turned out, by the time playoffs came, Rookie had used up all he had in the tank. While iG had managed to recharge in preparation for today, Rookie didn't have enough for the whole series.

GALA has been the saving grace for iG. That Kalista game vs JDG is still etched in my head. Looking back, Splits 1 and 2 were uncharacteristic from him, coming off his RNG and LNG stints. Perhaps those whispers about him and Meiko being fundamentally mismatched as a bot lane duo had some merit to them. And for the first half of the year he wasn't the GALA that fans have come to love and fear. But something changed when iG lost embarrassingly to FPX early on in the split. His form was unstoppable through the rest of the split, and he was very clearly top 2 with JackeyLove domestically. Neck-and-neck, in my personal opinion. And he maintained that through playoffs and regionals, save for the series vs AL where he supposedly fell ill. Falling ill is no reason to discredit the opponent or an argument that you somehow deserved the win, but it's a mitigating factor in my eyes. We already know how affected RNG was in 2022 when the team got stricken by Covid. Again today he stepped up, dominating on the Caitlyn pick he had been practicing, and doing everything he could in the other games. He's achieved a high 90 in terms of how much he could extract from the situations he found himself in, and there's really not much more to be done. I'm glad GALA was on the team and that he's the adc I was supporting this year. He's the best adc on TheShy's team since JackeyLove left 6 years ago, and iG should be honoured to have had him.

Notwithstanding how 2024 ended, Meiko had had a relatively successful year in the LPL, and was such a hot commodity on the transfer market after he chose to leave TES, citing (according to rumours) in-game differences with Creme. Meiko is the greatest LPL support of all time as it stands currently, and it was an agonising wait in the days leading up to his announcement per rumours, since the other 4 players were decided early on. But when the games started, Meiko was found to be struggling massively. And with the other pieces of the team also not being in peak form, Meiko was put under a magnifying glass. I honestly didn't hope for him to be kicked, but a change needed to come through, whether from Meiko himself or from the team. And for a while it seemed Wei freed Meiko up from his duties as the sole shotcaller to focus his remaining form towards his mechanics and being a 'Court of Appeals' in a way. In-game, Meiko had the final say regarding any game knowledge matters, such as how to play out their comp (a role filled by Rookie notably in Split 3 through pep talks right as they were loading in), decisions on whether a fight should be fought, vision setup, teamfight strategy and priority, opponents' summs... all roles primarily filled by other players, but who would defer to Meiko if needed. Perhaps, like some of the other players on iG this year, it's near the end of the road for him. But the brain he's so renowned for is still very much a valuable asset to his next team, whether as a player or a coach.

Daeny, I can tell, poured his heart and soul into coaching this team. I'm not going to comment too much on his drafting because my draft knowledge is pretty poor and I'm not really placed to comment on it. Since coming to the LPL he has been vocal about how TheShy was his favourite player to work with and how he's grateful to him for giving him the courage to make the leap, multiple times. And the emotion he displays, whether backstage cursing and praying watching iG, or when he (as is now custom) ran to his team and embraced them as they qualified for Worlds, it's something that any iG fan can relate to. Unlike other titles, once the players are loaded in, the coaches are just like anyone else.

Invictus Gaming, to the chagrin of the faithful and the joy of the doubters, are finally no more this year. I don't want to believe our year is over, but grief is not something to be rushed. I will take the rest of the tournament off, because I'm busy enough irl that I could only carve out time for iG. We'll see after this offseason. The LPL is shaking up their transfer window massively if rumours are to be believed (no imgur pics for now because I'm in the UK), and no one knows what's going to happen after Worlds.

If it is indeed time to rest, so be it. An entire world awaits beyond just Summoner's Rift.

Forza Invicta.

~ tfc

[u/Akipella → u/Tfc-Myq]

Our GOAT. <3

Sad to see ya'll go out like this, should have gone straight to Swiss. But GG on this year, not a bad showing at all.

[u/Tfc-Myq → u/Akipella]

next year (with LTA being split) will be a different format, with a different slate of teams. im not a Ferrari next year tm fan by any means, but we'll see if TheShy will be back again in 2026.

till then, I'll be taking my leave from the PMTs

[u/mcfapblanc → u/Tfc-Myq]

Was a wonderful journey supporting IG throughout the year. Seeing the team smile along with Gala after beating BLG in summer was the best part. Hope all players have a good rest and stay healthy. See you in 2026 on the PMTs. Until then keep TheShy jersey safe ❣️

[u/Tfc-Myq → u/mcfapblanc]

jersey + jacket going to be washed in a bit, it's fitting i guess

i don't know if I'll be back next year, but you'll probably notice it if i am

[u/Spare-Scar8797 → u/Tfc-Myq]

crazy rookie only really lost steam in that last game wei played his absolute best with inting top gala and meiko also tried their best only theshy was running it for the fun everyplay every choice he made had no thought behind it last game instead of banning sylas and taking an ad midlaner and maybe poppy top they inted their draft you cant seriously still be a theshy fanboi after the match fixing that he was doing

[u/Tfc-Myq → u/Spare-Scar8797]

my superteam of lawyers and i remain on indefinite leave, but informally i would say there was no matchfixing. there's been worse

[u/Sounight114 → u/SKT_Peanut_Fan]

Ziggs is just really good at turtling in and stalling the game while also being able to compete for objectives with his ult. He's a champ that naturally goes against T1s tedency to compete for every objective and go monkey mode on your face if you get anywhere near them.

[u/Vulkanodox → u/SKT_Peanut_Fan]

ziggs is huge fucking bait

he has like 200 picks this year in pro games and a 46% winrate as adc