The League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals have concluded. Top Esports easily defeated G2 and advanced to the semifinals. The matchup between AL and T1 became the global spotlight. Before the match began, LPL fans believed AL could beat T1 to reach the semifinals because T1’s Swiss round form was poor. However, Faker once again taught us a harsh lesson: T1 at Worlds is always an insurmountable mountain for the LPL.

Judging by the final score and in-game performance, AL can only be described as unfortunate because they didn’t lose to T1 by much. Except for the AD matchup disparity, the other four players performed excellently, each showing their strength in different games. If the AD roles were swapped, AL would definitely have made the semifinals, as Hope was truly underperforming in this BO5 and dragged the whole team down.

In the bot lane laning phase, Hope was constantly out-farmed every game. Except for game two, when Little Lü Bu tower-dived and gave Hope first blood, limiting the CS deficit to about 10, in the other four games, by 10 minutes, the AD was behind by around 20 CS. Just looking at laning, Hope was completely dominated. Even with support Karl performing better than Xiao K, the AD still had such a large gap, showing how weak Hope’s skill really was.

The deciding game’s Jinx was the most frustrating for viewers. The bot lane was already losing. Tarzan’s one gank helped Hope secure a kill, and at 12 minutes, a river skirmish with Saint’s godlike TP helped AL win the team fight, but Hope died again. For a late-game hypercarry like Jinx, starting 2-0 is a dream start, yet by 20 minutes, the AD was inexplicably behind by over 30 CS again.

In the crucial Elder Dragon team fight, Saint TP’d in to protect teammates and had already killed Mundo. With his passive triggered, he hesitated to chase forward and instead used W first, but Faker countered and slowed himself down. Meanwhile, the top and jungle absorbed damage from three opponents, creating space for Jinx to output, but Hope still didn’t dare to auto-attack and only cast W repeatedly. Eventually, he went forward to auto a couple of times and died, leading to AL being wiped out.

Many viewers might say Faker was constantly targeting Hope, preventing him from moving up. But the problem is that Hope tried to dodge skills but failed to avoid any, even wasting his Cleanse. Instead of playing so cautiously, it would have been better to activate his passive and go in heroically—even if he died, it would have honored the coach’s choice of him as the main carry. Yet courage seems to be a quality not every AD player possesses.

However, blaming Hope alone isn’t entirely fair. After the first four games, it was clear who was carrying and who was underperforming on AL. Knowing Hope lacked carry potential, Tabe still let him first pick Jinx and made the main carries the jungler and support, picking utility champions. Such a draft plan is questionable, and the coach also bears responsibility. In the final game, they even picked a soft support for the support role to protect Hope’s farming.

After this match, Hope’s reputation has truly taken a hit. Among the eight teams in the knockout stage, it’s hard to find an AD player performing worse than Hope. Even G2’s Hans Sama dares to fight back in losing games. It’s just unfortunate that despite strong performances from the top, mid, jungle, and support, AL still couldn’t overcome T1. It seems that a team aiming for the world championship cannot have any weak links in their roster.

Conclusion:

Former two-time T1 champion support Wolf openly criticized Hope during commentary: he was indeed underwhelming. LCK viewers also joked that if Hope played solo, the match would have ended much earlier. It’s not personal targeting, but Hope’s performance throughout this BO5 was extremely poor. Saint had moments of brilliance and mistakes, but Hope was silent the entire time.

So, do you think there is any AD in the quarterfinals worse than Hope?

Feel free to leave your comments and join the discussion!