Faker in and Teddy out? Rumours of roster swaps are swirling around T1

Ahead of their LCK Regional Qualifiers’ match versus Afreeca Freecs, T1 are potentially shuffling their starting roster. Namely, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok will be back in the midlane in place of Lee “Clozer” Ju-hyeon, Choi “Ellim” El-lim in place of struggling Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan, and most surprisingly Park “Teddy” Jin-seong is apparently being benched in favour of Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong.

To explain the rumor that Wadid mentioned at the end of today's broadcast, there has been speculation that T1 has been playing Canna-Ellim-Faker-Gumayusi-Effort in the majority of their scrims since their loss in playoffs versus Afreeca Freecs.#LCK pic.twitter.com/EQdbbWF038

— Kevin Kim 🦆 (@KevinKimLoL) September 7, 2020

Faker’s return obviously draws the eyes, but it is new blood Gumayusi that is causing the most stir. If he is to make his debut, it will be the first time ever that a rookie makes their debut during a Worlds qualifier. That said, Gumayusi is by all accounts worthy of the challenge - 

Gumayusi has been told to me throughout the year by various people he is the "golden rookie" of T1, even more so than Clozer

A lot of teams tried for him but T1 has stone walled them

While I would be surprised Teddy gets benched, Gumayusi is apparently really special https://t.co/GlHa0ZAwPB

— The Esports Writer (@FionnOnFire) September 7, 2020

LCK teams have been allegedly stonewalled from acquiring Guamayusi who’s contract T1 have been guarding jealously. Known as the “golden rookie,” the rookie ADC has more hype than even Clozer, who has been favoured over League’s greatest Faker in recent weeks. As context for the hype, Ainslie “Maplestreet” Wyllie (a former pro, coach and insider) said on stream yesterday that Gumayusi is the only player he has ever seen to achieve 10.1 cs a minute “whether [he] wins or lose[s].”

(Picture: T1)

Even so, it would be a big call for the T1 coaching staff to sub out Teddy, who has been one of T1’s most stable and high performing players over the last two years. But as we’ve already seen, T1 hasn’t been afraid to make those moves - just look at Faker’s recent sidelining.

All these roster shuffles (rumoured or otherwise) come after a somewhat difficult split for T1. After winning Spring, the three-time world champions struggled to find the same level of consistency in Summer and fell out of playoffs in a shock upset to none other than Afreeca freecs, who they’ll rematch tomorrow. It hasn’t helped that the players have been subject to online abuse in the wake of benchings and shaky performances, which has lead to warnings of legal action from T1 against the worst offenders.

We asked nicely a few weeks back. We said we would take action. We said we would do anything to protect our players, coaches and staff. We say what we mean and we mean what we say. https://t.co/aHKsLemgPX

— Joe Marsh (@JoeMar) September 3, 2020

However T1 decides to proceed, the rumours will be resolved at 9:00 am BST when their match versus Afreeca Freecs is scheduled to start.