BLG Beats T1 3-1: First LPL Team to Beat T1 in a Worlds Best-of-Five

Bilibili Gaming defeated T1 3-1 in the League of Legends World Championship semifinal on Monday — the first time a Chinese team has ever beaten T1 in a best-of-five at Worlds, and the win ends the Korean team's hopes of a fourth straight title.

The story is on Zhihu's top question slot today, Bilibili Gaming's own post-match commentary, and Baidu's top-trending list, and the scale is a little different from the other semifinal. The story's other semifinal — Gen.G's sweep of iG — was already covered yesterday; the final on Saturday is now a China-vs-Korea final.

In the post-match voice comms, the Chinese voice line that surfaced online was a simple one: "we finally won" — "bin哥快哭了" as one video caption put it, "Brother Bin was nearly crying." The line that surfaced in the T1 dressing room was a different one: the T1 top-laner Doran told a foreign outlet that he was confident his team could have won the match. "In my two years at T1, it has been a precious time," he said, "I thought we could have won today, and I was confident."

Chinese fans are not so sure. The story of the match — the story a Weibo post about the match put it — is that a Chinese team beat T1 in a best-of-five at Worlds for the first time, and the Chinese fans are not the only ones who see it that way. On Zhihu, the top question reads: "BLG 3:1 eliminated the defending champion T1, ending T1's four-peat — how do you evaluate this match?" — a question that has no answer, because the answer is that the four-peat is over.

For the Chinese fans, the story is a little different. T1 won the last three world championships, and the Chinese fans have been waiting. The story of the semifinal — the story of the day's post about the match — is the story of the wait: "BLG becomes the first LPL team to beat T1 in a Worlds BO5," the official league commentary post put it, "this time, we have crossed the mountain."

The final is on Saturday, against Gen.G, and the Chinese fans are not the only ones waiting. The story's other semifinal was already covered — the final on Saturday is now a China-vs-Korea final, and the story of the match is a story of the wait: a Chinese team beat T1 for the first time, and the final is a China-vs-Korea final.