The stakes are getting extremely high at the League of Legends World Championship 2025. This match was for advancing to the grand final.
In the quarterfinal against Anyone’s Legend, T1 have certainly proved their immense competitive strength. The team might have difficulties in the regional splits and early stages, but closer to the finals at LoL Worlds, the T1 players become a different beast.
Top Esports lost two matches in the Swiss Stage, and both were against Korean teams: KT Rolster and Gen.G. TES sure looked super strong in the quarterfinal, but playing versus G2 is not the same as facing T1.
In this semifinal at LoL Worlds 2025, T1 were the favorites over TES. T1 did not lose a best-of-five (Bo5) match to LPL representatives at the World Championships ever. The head-to-head record against Top Esports supports this: TES managed to win in 2024, but that was a Bo1 battle.
How to watch the T1 vs TES semifinal at LoL Worlds 2025: Stream
Head to the official YouTube channel of LoL Esports for all the Worlds 2025 streams. The match between T1 and Top Esports is embedded above.
T1 versus Top Esports: Match details and results
It’s the last Worlds Playoffs match in Shanghai. The grand final will happen in Chengdu. To earn one remaining spot, T1 and Top Esports had to secure three games.
T1 3:0 TES — T1 win the series and advance to the grand final at LoL Worlds 2025
Games | Winners |
|---|---|
| 1 | T1 |
| 2 | T1 |
| 3 | T1 |
| 4 | - |
| 5 | - |
Champions in bans and picks
Game | T1 bans | TES bans |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yone, Yunara, Sion, Ambessa, Neeko | Azir, Poppy, Bard, Renekton, Alistar |
| 2 | Azir, Yone, Yunara, Alistar, Qiyana | Taliyah, Bard, Poppy, Vi, Caitlyn |
| 3 | Azir, Yone, Yunara, Ezreal, Ziggs | Taliyah, Bard, Poppy, Braum, Alistar |
| 4 | - | - |
| 5 | - | - |
T1 Picks | T1 | Position | Top Esports | TES Picks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mordekaiser (G1) Camille (G2) Sion (G3) | Choi "Doran" Hyeon-jun | Top | Bai "369" Jiahao | K'Sante (G1) Ambessa (G2) Ornn (G3) |
| Xin Zhao (G1) Jarvan IV (G2) Pantheon (G3) | Mun "Oner" Hyeon-jun | Jungle | Seo "Kanavi" Jin-hyeok | Wukong (G1) Trundle (G2) Qiyana (G3) |
| Orianna (G1) Galio (G2) Mel (G3) | Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok | Mid | Lin "Creme" Jian | Akali (G1) Ryze (G2) Aurora (G3) |
| Varus (G1) Kai'Sa (G2) Ashe (G3) | Lee "Gumayusi" Min-hyung | Bot | Wenbo "JackeyLove" Yu | Sivir (G1) Corki (G2) Draven (G3) |
| Rakan (G1) Neeko (G2) Renata Glasc (G3) | Ryu "Keria" Min-seok | Support | Fu "Hang" Minghang | Karma (G1) Nami (G2) Nautilus (G3) |
Match recap
Top Esports tried out different approaches against T1, and they did not work at all. Game 1 was slow to gain the power: T1 did it better and destroyed their opponents. Game 2 was about offensive pokes from TES across the Rift. T1 needed two big collapses to win. In Game 3, Top Esports unleashed their battling nature, but T1 got more rewards from that stream of fights.
“When I was making my way to the stage, I was able to see the trophy, the Summoner’s Cup. I really-really want to have it in my hands. That made me want to play even better, even harder today.”
“In the past, I used to stress out about every result in each game. And I didn’t really have time to focus on what’s next. [...] After joining T1, I was able to see how mentally strong my teammates are. I was able to learn so much from them. With that, I was able to make it to the Worlds final.”
“We have gone through so many hard shifts this year. [...] I hope we will be smiling next week.”
With this dominant play, the LoL Worlds 2025 grand final was really inevitable for T1! KT Rolster are their next opponents.
Game 1
It was a slow game, cautious from both teams. Only one kill was on the scoreboard until minute 25. And then T1 won a big team fight, snowballed their power extremely quickly, and destroyed TES’ Nexus.
The early pokes were still interesting. Both T1 and Top Esports tried to clear the jungle camps of their opponents. On one of such attempts, T1 overstepped and gave the First Blood to TES.
There were no fights around the objectives, and T1 won this strategic chase for power. Top Esports took three Voidgrubs. T1 secured the first Dragon pretty late, around minute 13. They got two more uncontested as well.
TES tried to dive on Faker but couldn’t kill Orianna. This plan did not work.
The first proper team fight happened around Atakhan: T1 killed Kanavi and 369 to take this objective and Baron. TES forced a fight to stop the siege, but after losing more players in it, they just could not stop the victorious march of T1.
Game 2
This game was much quicker in terms of action on Summoner’s Rift. At some point, the aggressive approach gave a slight advantage to Top Esports. They couldn’t do anything with it, though. Two brilliant collapses around big objectives turned the game around, and T1 won it with a stomp.
TES started with early pressure, especially on Bot, but with no result. In response, it was T1 who ganked Carry and Support of TES: two early kills. Kanavi used this situation to secure a Dragon. Soon, Top Esports took all three Voidgrubs again.
JackeyLove returned a kill on Faker. Then, Top Esports found a good fight around the second Dragon: they earned more kills and secured the objective.
It looked like TES had a better positioning around the third Drake, but T1 collapsed perfectly, stole the Dragon, and landed a kill on JackeyLove.
The next collapse was around Atakhan. T1 lost two players in it but aced Top Esports and got the creatures.
T1 found more kills to secure the third Dragon, Baron, start a siege, and reach the match point in the LoL Worlds semifinal against TES.
Game 3
Massive fights with many kills were the name of the game this time. For Top Esports, it turned out to be a blood bath. They looked somewhat desperate, forcing unnecessary fights and losing them. T1 had casualties, too, but the team went out of those battles with more kills and with crucial objectives. Eliminating TES in this way was a great statement for T1 before the grand final at LoL Worlds 2025.
An early gank on the Top lane brought the First Blood to TES: on Doran. Another dive on Doran happened a bit later, but the T1 player took one opponent with him.
The teams exchanged objectives: three Voidgrubs for Top Esports and the first Dragon for T1. TES continued their dives, but T1 traded kills.
The series of massive fights started with the second Dragon. T1 secured the creature and killed five opponents — but they also lost three.
After reviving, Top Esports took Rift Herald and found a few kills in T1’s jungle. They lost more players for this.
The rest of Game 3 was a continuous stream of fights. To cement their advantage, T1 added Atakhan and the Chemtech Soul to their gold lead. After taking Baron and killing all the opponents, T1 smashed the Nexus and the hopes of TES at Worlds 2025.
One step for LCK to fully dominate LoL Worlds 2025
Two teams from LoL Champions Korea (LCK) played in the parallel semifinal: KT Rolster won that match, upsetting Gen.G.
Having three LCK teams in the top 4 of this Worlds event is an expected domination of this strongest League of Legends region. T1 took one more step in the same direction: to make the full-Korean grand final real.
T1 at Worlds
As an organization, T1 was in three LoL Worlds grand finals and claimed the trophy in two of them.
- Four players in the current roster of T1 won the Worlds in 2024 and 2023.
- Throughout all the League of Legends World Championships, T1 faced Chinese teams (LoL Pro League, LPL) 11 times and won all these Bo5 matches. The record includes the two grand finals in 2023 and 2024: against Weibo Gaming and BLG.
In the quarterfinal of LoL Worlds 2025, T1 had a close match against another LPL team, Anyone’s Legend.
TES on a big international stage
For Top Esports, it’s the second Worlds semifinal — after the tournament in 2020.
- At Worlds 2024, Top Esports defeated T1 in a Bo1 Swiss Stage match. The revenge came in the quarterfinal, where T1 won with a 3:0.
- TES were in the grand final of the LoL Esports World Cup 2025. That also was a match versus T1, and Top Esports lost it with a 1:3.
Two new players joined the main roster of Top Esports after those tournaments. They could not Hang and Kanavi make the difference in the match against T1, though.
LoL Worlds 2025 will have an exciting conclusion on Nov. 9. After the grand final, all the teams will head to a break, which includes player transfers. The League of Legends competition will be back with the regional splits in the beginning of 2026.
