TES suffered a crushing defeat to KT, causing an uproar on their official social media! Fans angrily criticized Kanavi: losing control whenever facing a fellow countryman

TES lost 0-2 to KT in the S15 World Championship Swiss stage, creating a major upset. Their extremely weak showing in both matches, with no fightback, led to widespread debate after the games.

First, TES’s official social media exploded, with many fans reflecting on TES’s historical World Championship results and voicing worries: is this a yearly pattern? This scenario has been seen multiple times—will it be another case of advancing 2-0 but then falling 2-3? Some fans even harshly criticized Kanavi: losing control when facing a fellow countryman and favoring aggressive jungle invades that lead to deaths! Others bluntly said: the jungle and support players aren’t performing like humans!

Next, LPL official commentators Miller, Guan Zeyuan, and Rita discussed the reasons for TES’s defeat. They believed this result was completely unexpected because KT had only beaten NS in the LCK and had no wins against top 3 teams. Yet KT became the first LCK team to advance to the quarterfinals with a perfect 3-0 record. TES’s gameplay was very poor; it’s unclear if KT’s pressure was overwhelming or TES was simply off form. Both games saw critical resource points lost during their respawn, causing a loss of mid-lane turret. KT’s jungler and support coordination was far superior, especially their targeting of Kanavi, whose movements were fully tracked by KT’s vision. Beyond in-game play, the first game’s draft phase was baffling—it required constant tempo and reliance on mid-jungle synergy, and once 1-2 waves of momentum were lost, recovery was very difficult.

Previously, TES’s 2-0 opponents in the Swiss stage were all Western teams, whose strength is notably weaker than Korean teams. TES could comfortably dominate weaker teams, but when facing slightly stronger opponents, they were crushed like this, which surprised many.

TES has often started strong but faltered in past World Championships, falling into a vicious cycle of consecutive losses after a sudden, inexplicable defeat. This is a key reason why TES struggles to achieve good results in international tournaments—the team’s morale tends to collapse completely after a single loss. It remains to be seen if the loss to KT will trigger the same negative effect; we can only watch their next match. Of course, we hope this year’s TES is different from before and can quickly bounce back in the next game!

So, what are your thoughts on this match? Feel free to share and discuss in the comments below.