Only four teams are left in the League of Legends Worlds Championship and things will get heated more than ever. The legendary and most decorated team in League’s history, T1, will go up against the Chinese first seed JD Gaming. Who’s going to win this Bo5 and which team will get their ticket to the finals in San Francisco?
Let’s break the two teams down, their path to victory, and set our expectations for the match.
Worlds 2022 – T1 vs JDG Semifinals – Saturday 29th October
We already had two banger series in the quarterfinals and I believe this one won’t be any different… I don’t believe in past history as much, but last year, we had 3 LCK teams and 1 LPL team in the semifinals and the LPL won.
Could this be a sign?
JDG finally faces a tougher opponent
JDG has been a dominant force at Worlds thus far. They came out first from their own group, beating DK in the tie-breaker for first place and then annihilated Rogue in the quarterfinals, sending home the last western team with a quick 3-0. With that being said, aside from DK, JDG hasn’t really played against another top team or a potential contender for the title. As the last Chinese team left at this year’s Worlds, they will have to put everything in order to survive against a team who is delivering performance after performance.
The key for JDG is to enable 369 in top against Zeus, or at least make the lane an island. T1 is one of the few teams who love to put Zeus on carry champions: we’ll see what they can do against JDG, who have 369 up in the top lane.
Faker and Zeus made headlines yet again, once T1 dominated the Chinese rivals RNG, beating them in another 3-0 series. While most fans expected T1 to be in the mix to fight for a strong finish, no one expected them to perform so well throughout the tournament. Zeus has been without a doubt the best top laner so far at Worlds, with monstrous stats: he’s leading in damage %, damage per minute, and has the highest gold diff at 15 minutes. Not only that, but he’s top three in almost all the other metrics. While he was already a great player during Summer, his further evolution is now making him among the elite of the elite.
T1 has a secret weapon in bot lane
The return to form of Gumayusi and Keria is a kay positive for T1 at Worlds 2022. The bot lane duo have seemingly found the confidence and performance that was lost after the Mid-Season Invitational and especially Gumayusi have shown he can take a major carry role, as they did against RNG on Xayah. Oner has also learned to be less aggressive and act as an initiator for the team and it’s working wonders.
While everyone discusses the top matchup, bot will be the lane T1 can look into, to break the series open. It’s down the T1’s strategists on how they will approach draft, but our analysis finds bot lane as the “easiest” avenue to exploit for T1 in this series.
I still expect the top side of the map will be where the game will dictate its first games of the series. The two top laners are the best individuals in that role at Worlds and the two junglers will have to do everything in order to make sure they are enabled. For T1, Oner should play to help Zeus snowball. On the other hand, JDG are comfortable throwing resources either on Kanavi or 369, depending on the draft.
Overall, JDG is slightly favored on the top side of the map, while T1 might find leads more often down in the bot lane. The key, though, will be in the mid-game teamfights: that’s when JDG shines the most and they can comeback despite an early advantage by T1. The Chinese team did it against DK as well, who are known for exquisite early-game execution, so Faker and his team will have to watch out for that.
T1 vs JDG Predictions
This year’s Worlds has given us a lot of surprises which have completely thrown the expectations out of the table. Yet our LoL Worlds Power Rankings are still somewhat relevant and accurate.
Predicting this series will be even harder compared to the T1-RNG series: on paper, the two teams have their strength and weaknesses so it will come down to how the two show up on the day. It’s a 50/50 currently and I don’t see anyone favored.
For this reason, I would suggest two different scores depending on who is expected to win: you can bet on both to hedge yourself and look to nail the bets with other LoL Worlds odds as well. If T1 wins, I think the series will end with a 3-1. Instead, if JDG wins, the series will go to Silver Scrapes and they should come out victorious.
The reason behind this is that JDG is less composed with their gameplay in comparison to T1. While they have great teamfighting, there are occasions and moments when they get overconfident and mess up. If T1 is able to neutralize that, the Korean team should win in an easier fashion. Otherwise, it will all come down to Game 5…
If you’re looking to bet on this series, below you can find some of the best odds based on their previous performances, offered as usual by GG.BET:
Map 1 Winner: T1 (1.74x)
First Blood: T1 (1.76x) – both teams don’t have high first blood rates, but JDG only has 20% compared to T1’s 40%.
Race to 5 kills: JDG (1.91x)
Map Duration: over 33.5 (1.90x) – expecting the two teams to play slower for the momentum that it can create in the series
Total Dragons Slain: over 4.5 (1.78x)
Total kills Map 1: over 22.5 (1.64x)
Maps Played (Total): over 3.5 (1.4x) – quite likely to happen
Correct Map Score – I’ll leave both odds we mentioned above
JDG 3-2 T1 (5.14x)
JDG 1-3 T1 (4.02x)
Match Total kills: over 100.5 (1.83x) – the two teams are quite bloody so 100.5 might also be reached with a 4 games only
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