Worlds In Depth - T1 vs BLG Analysis // The 2024 Worlds Champion Revealed

It's the end of the line for the biggest event of the year: the Worlds 2024 Finals. After barely qualifying for the tournament, T1 is making a run for a consecutive victory in this series, with their opponent being none other than the LPL powerhouse who has dominated the competitive scene all year: BLG.

Has the T1 dynasty returned or did we get new champions?

T1 is doing things their own way from Game 1 it seems. Their team composition is really lacking Magic Damage, but still has plenty of tools thanks to picks like Braum which are amazing at negating engage, something that BLG's draft heavily relies on with their mostly melee composition. All of these champions work incredibly well with eachother. It's going to be incredibly important for T1's carries to avoid any dangerous situations.

BLG mobilizes into the enemy jungle right after spawning in. After being able to avoid vision they're able to collapse on Gumayusi and get a very early First Blood thanks to him waiting to use Flash until it was already too late. With the gold going over to Elk the laning phase in botlane may become very one sided.

Within just five minutes what seemed like a pretty even laning phase accross the board quickly turned into a nightmare scenario for T1; Faker did a really bad trade after Teleporting to lane forcing him to recall again and Zeus died to a gank in toplane. The team rotates to Voidgrubs regardless. Oner starts taking the objective as soon as it spawns thanks to all his teammates being in position. BLG is preparing to contest the objective and catches Keria as he tries to enter the river, getting another kill and forcing T1 off the Voidgrubs.

Even though they've been forced to simply survive and concede Dragon, they're still positioning with the hopes of contesting the next spawn of Voidgrubs. Oner is the one caught this time as he tries to take Scuttle Crab, which prompted knight to use his Teleport and leave his botlane defenseless. He manages to escape by flashing away and T1 is actually very happy with this outcome. Faker is getting tons of gold by farming botlane and taking Tower plates and Gumayusi miraculously stole a grub with his Q, denying the ability to spawn Voidmites.

Zeus sniffs out Elk and ON, cancelling their recalls and Flashing forwards with Mega Gnar; Faker Teleports to help the play. T1 is recovering very well after burning all their summoners and getting their first two kills. With Herald and Dragon alive at the same time teams are now crossmapping, T1 gets Dragon while XUN takes Herald. T1 is trying to siege midlane while both objectives are being slain, this leads to a teamfight soon after. Zeus was overextended and his team tries their hardest to escape, nevertheless Elk gets away with a Triple Kill and his team destroys the midlane towers, and Bin wasted no time taking a botlane tower by himself using Teleport.

The game is blown wide open; Keria dies trying to get vision, Faker gets help from his botlane to survive against Bin but dies to an Ashe Arrow anyways and Oner gets killed trying to defend his toplane towers. BLG is taking everything and leaving nothing for scraps.

BLG finds a window to take Baron after a while of simply pushing waves. Spotted by a clever ward, T1 moves midlane in hopes of being able to contest it, but knight masterfully positions himself in the Fog of War, avoiding all vision and finding a flank on Gumayusi. This kill takes away any hopes of fighting and T1 is now forced to walk in 4v5, hoping Oner can steal the objective. Clearly a long shot that undoubtedly failed, it seems BLG will win this game, but it's not over just yet.

Another Dragon is taken for good measure, knight solo kills Faker, Gumayusi is sniped by an Ashe Arrow and gets instantly one-shot, and there's no way to defend the Nexus anymore, BLG wins the first game.

T1 has gone in a completely different direction this time, the focus of their composition will be skirmishing; these champions will have a rough time working without a gold lead and an even harder one if they fall behind. BLG 's team composition is quite scary, very strong engage and tons of tools to avoid one from the enemy. Their focus will be spent on getting picks and strong sidelaning.

Game starts and Keria walks into the enemy jungle, seemingly trying to sweep vision. He ends up face-checking the enemy botlane and now T1 is forced to burn summoners to avoid dying. After being run down from river all the way to the raptors bush, Gumayusi is the only one unable to escape giving First Blood to Elk for a second game in a row, dying in the exact same spot.

Being forced to lane swap now, Zeus goes botlane to face Ashe and Rakan, taking tons of damage straight away. BLG looks to dive off this, but after an incredible Flash ON is knocked up and dies to the tower, making this a 1 for 1 trade. His Teleport allows him to catch most of the wave. Meanwhile in top, Bin gets completely zoned off the wave and ON comes to help after respawning. Not being enough, knight's Teleport is used; He Flashes forward right away as they're looking to punish the botlaners. Gumayusi barely survives, Oner rotates promptly and T1 flip this play on its head, killing knight and Bin too once Faker joined the fight.

All players are rotating for Voidgrubs, XUN starts the objective but T1 was ready and waiting; Oner walks up, escorted by his botlane, smiting away the first grub. After this they have dealt enough damage to zone BLG away, claiming the rest of the objective. With every player so close to toplane they start clearing vision and positioning to execute a dive. BLG's players are ready to defend this play, ON however is very low HP after getting caught and is still only Level 3. The only players not present are Faker and Bin, whom are farming midlane, with the former being the one with lane priority thus rotating first. This is a very risky play but they don't seem to care; once all players are in position the call is made. With Bin's Teleport still on cooldown for a few seconds, the fight ends up in T1's favor as they barely make it out alive and get 2 kills. Eventually Bin does Teleport toplane and helps get a single kill, with Gumayusi being the victim, however T1 managed to kill XUN before the channel completed.

Since Dragon wasn't taken until Voidgrubs respawned, the teams proceeded to crossmap with T1 beings the one able to freely claim the grubs, collecting all 6 stacks. For the past five minutes they have barely stepped foot in botlane, funneling all their pressure towards toplane and periodically hovering midlane. Their strategy has mostly relied on distraction, baiting one or more enemy players to one part of the map in order to get resources or make a play elsewhere.

Herald is spawning soon, only Faker and knight aren't around as they're currently farming and trading within botlane. XUN is the first to arrive at the objective, it's still too soon for his team to commit however. Faker Teleports towards his team before recalling and only has half of his Mana and HP for this fight; it's looking like a terrible scenario for T1. BLG engages as ON Flashes forward with his ultimate onto Faker; the followup by XUN ends up saving Faker by knocking him to safety. The followup by T1 is devastating, with almost the entire team standing in a choke point the Kalista and Ornn ultimates got 2 triple knockups back to back. Three kills and both map objectives go towards T1 after this incredible play.

Following a long lull state, T1 are slowly but surely taking down all outer turrets and making progress on the Tier 2's. Anticipating the next Dragon, Zeus sneaks himself behind enemy lines after his team took control of BLG's botside jungle. This well placed flank gets Elk killed and enough pressure on his teammates that they must now concede this objective after losing tons of resources.

The game is tense as it's all coming down to Baron. BLG is looking to catch Faker in top as most members of T1 had to recall. Surviving long enough for his team to get close to him it seems like they're backing off, except they're trying to set a trap inside of Tri-Bush to catch Faker as he enters the river. A quick reaction from his team along good mechanics from Faker wins T1 the fight and the Demon King remains Unkilled. Four kills and Baron are claimed without losing a single player.

Not much time passes before T1 cracks open the base and wipes BLG off the map, securing victory on the Second Game this series.

BLG's draft this time seems very similar to that of last game, with two key differences: 1.- Their engage is a lot scarier since they have much better follow-up and 2.- T1 doesn't have nearly as much disengage tools this time. Gumayusi was unsurprisingly target banned, ending up on Xayah in a position that most likely won't let the champion shine. There's a silver lining as he won't be killed by an Ashe one minute into the game for a 3rd time in a row.

Something we saw in Semifinals happened this game as well. T1 want to lane swap this game, knowing this BLG wants to match it, but T1 anticipating this now doesn't lane swap at all to gamble being able to lane swap. This pays off as their botlane now goes up against Bin and gets the scenario they wanted. After both sidelanes crashing a stacked wave and resetting, both team's botlaners go up against eachother.

First Kindred mark spawns on the top Scuttle Crab. Oner is quick enough to deny it but is now flanked from 3 angles. By Flashing away from XUN he ends up surrounded by Bin and knight. Triple Flash from BLG for First Blood and a Kindred mark.

T1 is mobilizing for Voidgrubs and Oner is first to the objective, trying to farm it right away. Rather than going to the objective right away, BLG ganks midlane, ON Flashes on Faker to chain CC him, which was more than enough to secure this kill. Oner has to leave, only able to get a single stack. This lack of map control also loses T1 the first Dragon.

Unable to step foot into their jungle, Zeus gets dove toplane by Bin thanks to a Teleport from knight and XUN being able to freely walk behind the tower. With no chance at helping him, T1 try to catch Elk in the river but can't make it work. Still walking around Voidgrubs with a teammate down they have to run away after a terrible fight, giving another two kills regardless.

BLG is snowballing incredibly hard, they have control over the entire jungle and can tower dive anyone. T1 is helpless against these players and can barely cross map against them, only getting a dragon and a tower while losing Herald and two turrets. With the 5 Voidgrub stacks BLG can get whatever towers they please, proven by them destroying sidelines in one single push. T1's champions are too slow at pushing and taking turrets so they don't even have to bother defending.

In a desperate attempt of getting some kind of lead, T1 force a fight on knight who was by himself in toplane. The 3v1 quickly turns 4v3 after a Teleport from Bin and a rotation from XUN. T1 doesn't have nearly enough damage to burst down Galio and Gumayusi was nowhere near them to help this fight; by the time he made it there his whole team was dead and was eliminated himself.

Baron was obviously taken instantly after that play, with just a quick reset T1's base is being destroyed as they don't have a way to defend themselves at this point. One by one they destroyed the structures, taking their inhibitors from Top to Bottom. As they tried to siege the botlane Tower & Inhibitor, T1 managed to split the players apart enough to get 2 kills, with only two of their players dying. The structures fell regardless and BLG takes Dragon while they wait for their players to respawn.

It's impossible to defend this push even without Baron, BLG easily ends the game by walking all their players into the enemy base and they now lead this series 2-1.

BLG mixes things up this time, drafting a composition that's looking to scale and slow down the game. This is actually very scary from them considering how well they've played these type of drafts before; easily clearing waves and having monstrous scaling the longer a game goes on for has proven incredibly successful for them in the past. T1 is under a lot of pressure this game as they lack consistent engage tools and can't afford to lose this game. It may all come down to Faker spearheading the fights for his team.

T1 goes for the lane swap, vertical jungling right away with Oner starting his clear on the enemy red buff. Toplane is completely abandoned by BLG as they're overloading botlane in hopes of diving Zeus. The only player looking to rotate and help out is Keria who may not make it in time. He reaches Level 2 right as the wave crashes, dodges almost every spell using his Flash and Keria barely arrives on time to saving him, Flashing to get in range of his spells. Zeus goes down in the end but at least managed to absorb most of the XP from the wave in the process; with how much he managed to stall this isn't a straight up net positive for BLG, no one was catching the top wave, meaning Bin is Level 1 with 0 CS, and the tempo of most of the team is now pretty bad.

BLG goes for yet another dive against Zeus, this time with just help from the jungler. This kill may seem like bad news for T1, but with Bin surrendering all resources he's Level 2 with 1 CS five minutes into the game. Shutting down Zeus may not prove worthwile as Bin is at a much worse spot for it. A third gank onto Zeus takes place, this time it's XUN and Bin fighting him together; a third kill for BLG but he claimed the wave in the process, keeping T1 in the lead in terms of experience only. This also meant there was no one topside to contest the Voidgrubs.

The gold lead is not enough for Elk to be able to walk to tower as Gumayusi is Level 6 and he's not. Being able to zone him with just two players also means they can invest more players towards taking Dragon, another objective BLG cannot contest due to being behind in levels.

Faker ends up 1v1 in toplane against Elk and it's here that becomes clear how T1 is not actually behind this game. After using all of his spells, Faker starts chasing him in what seems to just be a trade but never actually takes his foot off the gas, going all the way from his tower to diving Elk and getting a solo kill after trading Flashes.

In an attempt to kill Keria, BLG uses multiple ultimates and then is forced to burn summoner spells to make an escape after failing to secure it. With no more tools left, T1 is able to get the last 3 stacks of Voidgrubs without contest. With eyes set on Dragon now, Oner tries to dive Bin botlane alongside Zeus. Barely getting away T1 may be in trouble as three members are rotating to the lane, Oner is very low HP and Keria may get caught in a bad spot. Impressive positioning from them leads to a clean victory in the teamfight; Oner dashing into the fray which put him in range of his support, making it out alive by a hair as Gumayusi gets a kill, reviving him using Renata's Bailout. XUN Flashes away as his team disengages, but Keria is chasing all the way, Flashing to secure the kill. Botlane tower falls and the objective goes to T1.

BLG tried to take Herald but couldn't kill it in time, they simply leashed it for T1. Now grouping 4 players in order to siege toplane, T1 perhaps pull the trigger a bit too early; Bin gets Mega Gnar in time to pull Keria into the tower. With a Teleport from both Elk and knight this quickly turns into a teamfight thats in favor of BLG. After failing to consider the Teleports and overstaying, T1 loses its initiative by giving away three kills and a tower.

Thanks to the 6 Voidgrub stacks, it's impossible to defend low HP towers. This lets T1 keep control over most of the map, which is then used to claim a third Dragon for free. BLG tries to siege midlane while T1 reset and even though the Ashe Arrow missed, Faker was really quick on the flank, landing an incredible engage. Both carries are killed and they're now pushing down the second midlane tower with help of Herald and Voidmites. With only Zeus staying midlane, putting pressure on XUN and ON, almost killing the latter, the rest of his team is trying to burst down Baron in this tight window.

They claim the objective, but with both Teleports available BLG is set on not letting them leave this place alive. There's a lot of space between the teams, however it's not clear if they can all escape. Zeus is the one to dive head first, sacrificing himself in order for all of his teammates to escape safely.

Faker is pushing toplane by himself while his team sieges botlane. BLG starts the fight with a Sejuani ult, unable to follow up the whole team is trying to fall back. Faker teleports the second he takes the toplane tower and it's BLG who almost gets aced. Three kills for one and they have no structures past their inhibitor towers anymore.

Chemtech Soul is claimed and Baron buff has ran out. BLG can still win this game thanks to their incredible scaling and the game starting to slow down. XUN burns his ultimate trying to catch Faker, who dodges it with his incredible reaction time. Wasting no time T1 sees this as an opportunity to run head first into their jungle, looking to pick a fight now that they have an important spell on cooldown. T1 are the ones now burning multiple ultimate spells, looking to kill either ON or XUN within their jungle, however unsuccessful. As Elk walks into a warded bush, Keria is the one to instantly Flash forward, pulling him into his team. BLG's forces are split, even though there wasn't enough damage to kill their ADC, XUN is the one to fall.

T1 is once again going for the Baron in the tight window where a single BLG player is dead. Objective is secured with no chance of it being stolen or them even being chased afterwards. With this much waveclear it's difficult to make progress, even with the Baron buff being active. T1 is trying to push all three waves to mitigate this problem. No progress was able to be made as the buff was only used to keep control of the map until Elder Dragon spawned. ON oversteps in his jungle and gets caught, dying only a few seconds before the objective spawns. Faker Teleports trying to flank Bin with his team, but as BLG enters the jungle his teammates must take that fight. He was still successful with his flank however and managed to solo kill Bin.

The rest of the fight was extremely one sided due to the numbers advantage being present at all times for T1. With only Rakan left to defend, nothing more can be done. T1 take another victory as the series is now tied 2-2 and we reach match point.

For this last game BLG has covered all bases; strong sidelaning, good scaling and really good engage. As for T1 they make up in frontline what they may end up lacking in damage. It's hard to tell which way the wind blows based off team compositions alone as the outcome will heavily depend on which players get ahead.

BLG opted for a lane swap while T1 didn't. However, Zeus showed midlane and pretended to walk towards botlane to give the idea of them diving Bin; this made ON recall as the wave crash in order to rotate and help defend this dive. Zeus instead walked towards his toplane through the Fog of War, which let him catch the wave for free.

A backwards Galio E from Faker made knight burn Flash. Few seconds later his E + Flash fails, this left him defensless against the gank from XUN and knight claims the First Blood.

With every single player rotating for Voidgrubs we have a full fledged teamfight on our hands. With Oner perfectly Flashing out of BLG's engage, T1 turns the tables and kills ON, winning the teamfight thanks to the team playing better mechanically.

Dragon is alive and Oner is hovering botlane, it may seem as they're looking to dive but this mainly zones BLG's botlane off the wave while T1's keeps lane priority and takes multiple plates. Once Oner leaves, ON blunders by walking into the wrong spot for just a second, getting stunned by Keria and giving Gumayusi a free kill. This puts him 1.4k gold ahead before the 10 minute mark as he is 40 CS ahead of Elk, this is a devastating lead.

T1's botlane is pushing top. Keria is able to deny Jarvan's engage at first, but ON is making his way through the river, knight is Teleporting behind them and Elk is making his way through the lane. Keria gives his life to peel Gumayusi who almost gets a return kill; Oner also jumped in but died under his tower. While BLG committed every single player for this play, Zeus got First Tower down in botlane and Faker gets a CS lead in midlane. With most of their players also having to recall T1 are the ones who end up getting most of the Voidgrubs.

T1 keeps hovering the majority of their players toplane in order to pressure the tower. Whenever defended this is impossible to siege, but once Herald is up and BLG cross maps to take Dragon, there isn't anyone left to defend this tower. Without even using Herald they almost claim a second toplane turret, thanks to their 5 Voidgrub stacks, but decide to save the herald and back off for now. Slowly but surely, with enough pressure this tower falls without having to spend the Herald.

The charge is eventually used midlane, but T1 doesn't try too hard to take the tower and simply keeps applying pressure. With the map objectives spawning soon, it seems as if BLG will try to give up Dragon in order to crack open toplane. This tower eventually falls as they were forced to hover around botside, leaving knight alone to push. Dragon does go to T1 as BLG is focusing on reaching item spikes before taking their chances on a teamfight.

It seems as if a single fight will decide this year's World Champion. Dragon is spawning soon which means both map objectives will be alive at the same time, which may create a fork. All pressure is on the midlane towers who have both managed to stay alive so far. ON face-checks Zeus who was sitting in their botside jungle. At first it seems like he will be the one getting a pick as his toplaner, Bin was right next to him. Gumayusi was sitting in river close enough to one-shot ON with Zeus; this kill allows T1 to get Dragon without risking Baron being taken in the meantime.

A fight breaks out in the botside river. Keria is getting chunked by Elk while Gumayusi and Oner are in a 2v3, and both toplaners are fighting eachother right in front of the Dragon pit. Faker is still farming toplane and tries walking to the fight before deciding to use Teleport. Gumayusi being the first to die is catastrophic, being the only pure damage dealer. Keria doesn't last long after and Oner just barely kills ON. It's a 4v3 with the game on the line. Faker finds the angle to Flash forward and CC knight; with his team following up they kill him in the CC chain. XUN tries to help but it's too low HP and just dies himself. It's just perfect teamwork from T1 as these three players ace BLG and it didn't even seem like they took any damage at all.

They manage to kill Baron in time and even get the buff on every single player. Zeus is pushing toplane by himself and BLG sees this as an opportunity to shut down a key player, sending four players to kill him. Faker was just in range to use Galio's ultimate, buying him tons of time. Elk dies very quickly and it's now a 2v3, the rest of T1 is still quite a distance away. This dynamic duo deals as much damage as possible, with only Faker barely surviving long enough for Gumayusi and Oner to rotate. Surviving with just a sliver of health, the remainder BLG players are killed and only knight remains to defend a four man Baron push.

Undoubtedly an impossible task, T1 easily crushes their base and dreams of winning this year's World Championship.

In what may have been the last time we see the Zeus, Oner, Faker, Gumayusi & Keria roster together, we saw an incredibly exciting 5 game series. T1's skill is truly unparalleled as they're truly the best team in the world; we will never see anyone come close to them.

It's also time to reveal the final winner of our giveaways. For this finals match we made the prize 250€ in either RP or Riot Merch Store. This was the perfect way of getting the new Arcane Unbound Jinx skin for free. The winner is @Avagryff, keep an eye on your inbox!

Thank you everyone for reading our articles and participating in the giveaway, we're glad to have you here.