AL fought well but could not defeat T1 at LoL Worlds 2025

The reigning Champions march into the Knockout stage. Knowing how terrifying T1 can be when it matters the most, the fans are not too upset about the shaky performance in the Swiss matches.

The opponents, Anyone’s Legends, are on the mission to equalize the Korea vs China presence in the Worlds 2025 top 4.

All the LoL Worlds 2025 matches are on the official YouTube channel. You can watch the quarterfinal between Anyone’s Legend and T1 here, as the stream is embedded above.

Like all the Knockout Stage matches, this quarterfinal is under the best-of-five (Bo5) format. T1 and Anyone’s Legend need to secure three games to advance to the LoL Worlds 2025 semifinal.

The winners’ opponents were already decided: it’s Top Esports. In the parallel brackets, two Korean teams will play for the grand final spot — KT Rolster versus Gen.G Esports.

It was absolute cinema of a LoL match! All five games were extremely close, and a team with an early advantage did not necessarily win on the Rift.

Anyone’s Legend had a chance to break the LPL curse of losing to T1 at Worlds. From those games AL actually won to the decisive Game 5 — the team was brilliant! It’s just a bit of something extraordinary on the side of T1 that carried the Korean team: positioning of Faker, a proper focus on the objectives, pushing gold into the right champion, etc.

For T1, this win is a proof of their perfectly competitive form at the Worlds 2025. The battle against LPL is not over yet, as Top Esports are waiting in the semifinal.

The game started slowly, and Anyone’s Legend had a slight gold advantage for a pretty long time. However, after one massive fight, everything fell apart for the Chinese team. T1 snowballed their power and delivered an inevitable final blow.

In the early stage, both sides were very cautious. Al and T1 traded objectives: three Voidgrubs for Anyone’s Legend and the first Dragon for T1.

Flandre pushed through the Top and took down the first turret. T1 went for the second Dragon right after that, and it was the first team fight of this game. AL lost four players and the objective in it. T1 also had casualties, but only two.

Anyone’s Legend kept the gold score equal, though. They also took Rift Herald right after the fight.

Rek'Sai of Flandre had the biggest lead among the AL players. It helped him to force small fights and win them: like a random kill on Faker in the river.

T1 also tried to force a fight to have the upper hand in an Atakhan fight. Despite landing kills, T1 lost there. AL got rid of Oner and pushed other opponents away. Without their Jungler, T1 could not contest this important objective.

As a trade, T1 went for their third Dragon and secured it uncontested.

It looked like Al had a good positioning around the crucial fourth Dragon, but T1 managed to find a pick on Flandre. With this advantage, they won the fight and secured the Inferno Soul. That was the point of no return

With a delayed Ace, T1 got the Baron buff and broke Al’s base through the Top lane. In a while, Elder Dragon spawned, and T1 aced once again around this objective. The Nexus of Anyone’s Legend fell next.

This time, teams were active with their aggression from the very beginning. Anyone’s Legend got great early kills thanks to an excellent play around their turrets. The gold advantage grew bigger, and despite a weird mistake in the mid-game, AL smashed T1 and made the match score in the LoL Worlds 2025 quarterfinal equal.

Faker picked Anivia, which was somewhat surprising. Still, the Champion had an 8:2 W/L record throughout his career.

T1 pushed via Bot early, but Gumayusi got punished for overstepping: killed by the turret. Tarzan forced that by his ganking presence.

The Top turret helped AL to earn a kill back when T1 dived on Flandre. Soon, Flandre’s Ambessa walked to Mid and killed Faker together with Shanks.

The turret kills continued when Flandre danced on Top to survive a dive from Doran and thus earn another turret kill for AL. Gumayusi still killed Ambessa with a shot across the map. T1 took the Dragon but lost a fight after it. Al earned an almost 2k gold lead.

Teams traded kills, and AL came with an advantage from them: Rift Herald, turrets, and two Dragons. T1 secured Atakhan.

A big and almost fatal mistake happened when Al walked into T1’s jungle and died.

Still, Anyone’s Legend fixed it in a fight around a Dragon. They won the fight, got the gold lead back, secured Baron, and eventually won the game.

At some point, it looked like T1 were going to take this game. However, Anyone’s Legend won a crucial fight that allowed them to secure late objectives, get an amazing power spike, and reach the series point.

Teams exchanged early hits without kills. AL earned the First Blood on Oner and took the first Dragon. Soon, they secured three Voidgrubs.

T1 finally got a kill on Mid: Tarzan’s Jarvan IV. Around the next Dragon, T1 won a fight and took the objective. 

AL responded with a kill on Mid: Gumayusi’s Ziggs. Then, AL targeted T1’s AD Carry in a fight around Rift Herald. Anyone’s Legend used Shelly to distract the opponents and secure the next Dragon. 

T1 had a great fight near Atakhan and claimed the creature. AL returned for their third Dragon.

At this point, T1 had a significant gold advantage and felt relatively free on the Rift. The following fight changed the fate of this game between AL and T1 at LoL Worlds 2025.

AL dived on Faker on Top and won that fight despite having all the T1 players coming for the party. Only Keria survived it. Anyone’s Legend earned the Mountain Soul, which brought great power to their team composition. After a while, they stacked more objectives: Baron and Elder Dragon. It was a victorious ending for Anyone’s Legend!

The teams treated us to another extremely close game! T1 earned a nice early advantage, but Anyone’s Legend managed to win big fights and take Atakhan. T1 put all the money into Gumayusi’s pocket, and it paid off perfectly in the end — to make the final push with late objectives and bring this spectacular quarterfinal to Game 5.

The first big team fight happened with T1’s dive on Top. Both teams lost players, but T1 finished that clash with an advantage: extra kills and two Voidgrubs.

Al successfully pushed through the Top a bit later, too — for one kill. T1 still got the Dragon out of it, uncontested. They accumulated even more advantage with the soon-coming Rift Herald fight, as T1 secured Shelly and earned four kills.

When the situation looked desperate, Anyone’s Legend succeeded in a fight around Atakhan and got the creature.

To stay alive, T1 went for their second Dragon. Their main power was on the fed Ki’Sa of Gumayusi, but even AD Carry could not save them during the bloody Baron fight. A good thing was that both teams lost players there, so that AL could not receive the Baron buff right away.

To accumulate power for the final push. Gumayusi took the Dragon solo, and then T1 made a few attempts on Baron. Eventually, this plan worked, and T1 eliminated their opponents. With Baron and the Mountain Soul, it was not too difficult for them to ruin AL’s Nexus.

Anyone’s Legend were really, really close to taking this. They had more gold and were winning team fights. However, T1 managed to secure the most important late-game objectives, turn the game around, and win the entire series against AL at LoL Worlds 2025.

The first kills happened early, at minute 4, as the teams exchanged deadly hits. Soon, T1 secured the first Dragon. They push via the lanes to farm gold from the turret’s plates.

Anyone’s Legend punished T1 for overextending: they earned three kills. This success reflected what AL could achieve in this game.

T1 won the pressure game around the third Dragon and reached the Soul point. It was their focus: get objectives.

It looked like T1 lost the fight around Atakhan, but with some casualties on their side, Faker managed to steal it.

Thanks to successful kills, Al had a good gold advantage. It did not save them.

Despite the great effort from Anyone’s Legend, T1 secured the Hextech Soul at minute 24. AL killed three opponents but could not get any objective out of that.

Anyone’s Legend found another great fight around Baron. With the delayed Ace, Al reached an almost 5k gold lead but could not earn the buff.

T1 collapsed on Aatrox of Flandre before the big Elder Dragon fight. It was a good idea, as even with some deaths, T1 got this mighty buff.

They took Baron immediately, went for the siege, and crashed their way to the semifinal at the League of Legends World Championship 2025.

The final stage of the League of Legends World Championship 2025 is mainly about the Korea vs China esports rivalry. Only G2 intervened in this battle in the quarterfinals, but Top Esports eliminated them.

One side can get a number advantage in the quarterfinal: if T1 can defeat Anyone’s Legend. On paper, T1 are the favorites. In reality, AL took down two big Korean teams in the Swiss Stage, while T1 enjoyed victories only over the underdogs. 

The LoL Worlds 2025 semifinals are on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. The tournament takes a one-week break after that, as the grand final is on Nov. 9.