T1 veteran criticizes the current version for limiting FAKER.

Since T1 secured a triple crown in the World Championship, LOL global regions have experienced "massive sponsor withdrawals," and LOL designers do not want T1 to dominate alone. Thus, in the current S16 version, designers are "openly nerfing T1" to stop T1 from winning another world title. Recently, as LCK matches continue, many viewers have noticed that the designers' targeting of T1 is spot-on; T1's current performance is indeed poor, and many even speculate that T1 might miss MSI or the World Championship this year.

In previous years, T1 struggled against GEN in the league but easily defeated other teams. This year, however, T1 has repeatedly stumbled against mid-tier LCK teams, even losing to their acknowledged "easy opponent" DK. Particularly, T1's recent back-and-forth battles with the bottom-ranked BRO have dismayed many T1 fans. BRO's season record is 1 win and 7 losses; teams like HLE, GEN, and KT finished both matches against BRO in under an hour total, while T1 dragged both games against BRO into over 40-minute-long contests.

Many insiders, observing T1's poor performance, have analyzed the reasons for their困境. Former T1 support player Wolf stated during a直播 that T1's struggles are largely due to the diminished influence of the mid-lane. Wolf explained that current mid and jungle roles are essentially tools for the top and bottom lanes—they've become "super-sized supports." Match victory now hinges entirely on the performance of top and bottom lanes, and T1's bottom laner Peyz and top laner Doran's inconsistent form make wins difficult.

ONER addresses the designers.

Because the new version severely reduces mid and jungle impact on matches, T1's triple-crown jungler ONER has been underperforming consistently, with many T1 fans calling ONER the biggest victim of the current version. Recently, ONER publicly addressed the designers in an interview, stating that jungling in the new version is too difficult and hoping designers change the current "ridiculous situation" next update. ONER wishes to see normal heroes in the top lane next season.

ONER criticized in the interview that the current version overly emphasizes the laning situations of top and bottom lanes, so during BP both sides pick strong heroes for those lanes to dominate lane phase. This has made top Vayne and top Varus commonplace, which ONER finds uninteresting. (Current match BP is indeed somewhat formulaic: bottom lanes all pair with soft supports, top lanes are uniformly long-range versus short-range, and LPL recently had bizarre matchups like top Lee Sin versus Anivia.)

Of course, many viewers think ONER is being overly sensitive. After the lane-swap version was removed, many LPL viewers find current matches more entertaining than before. Previously, due to lane swaps, top lanes could only play "tank heroes to endure pressure," sometimes with no first blood even after 10 minutes. Now, with the laning-focused version, top hero choices are much more diverse. (Do you think AD top laners will be nerfed after ONER's public address to the designers?)

Conclusion.

I personally feel the current match version is highly观赏性; you can't guess which heroes the top laners will pick until the last moment. To enhance top lane强度, all LOL regions are starting to use "odd heroes" for top lane: Anivia, Lee Sin, Vayne, Varus, and Twisted Fate have all appeared recently. Which other niche heroes in LOL do you think适合打上单呢?