The 2022 League of Legends World Championship final was a League of Legends (LoL) esports series between T1 and DRX on 5 November 2022 at the Chase Center in San Francisco, California, United States. It marked the twelfth final of a LoL World Championship. Both T1 and DRX were two of four representatives from the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) at the tournament, the others being Gen.G and DWG KIA. It was T1's first appearance in the final since the 2017 edition and the first time a play-in team made a tournament run to the final, with DRX starting their tournament from the play-in stage as the LCK's fourth seed, barely qualifying through the regional qualifiers.
The series was a best of five and was played in front of 18,000 spectators, with 5.1 million concurrent peak viewers, which was the highest in the tournament's history at the time. The series ended 3–2 in favor of DRX after a back-and-forth five-game series, and was considered the completion of a Cinderella run by commentators, with many regarding it as one of the greatest finals in the history of League of Legends.
DRX's top laner Hwang "Kingen" Seong-hoon earned Most Valuable Player honors. The series marked the first international victory for DRX and support Cho "BeryL" Geon-hee's second world championship, making him one of the two active players alongside Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, who also played in the series in his fifth finals appearance, to have more than one world championship after winning the title with DWG KIA in 2020. It also marked the first world championship for ADC Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu, who was reportedly in his final year of professional play before eventually deciding to continue playing for two more seasons before entering mandatory military service in South Korea, and his second international title after winning the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational with Edward Gaming, whom DRX also faced en route to the finals and were the defending champions heading into Worlds.
Background
League of Legends is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed by Riot Games. Each year, Riot hosts a World Championship (Worlds) featuring the most successful teams globally throughout the year-long season. The 2022 Worlds, the twelfth edition of the World Championship, as with its predecessors, was played on the map "Summoner's Rift", a play-field featuring three lanes defined by their locationtop, middle, and bottomand two jungle quadrants, mirrored diagonally down a neutral zone known as the river. Summoner's Rift is played by ten players, five per team, through an isometric perspective as players control characters, known as "champions", split between five roles respective on their location on the map: top, jungle, middle, attack damage carry, and support. The latter two are both played in the bottom lane. The two teams are referred to as red and blue. The red team spawns in the top right and the blue team spawns in the bottom left.
In professional play, players choose their champions during champion select. This consists of four phases: banning phase and picking phase, both of which occur twice. The blue team starts, banning one champion at their discretion. This is then interchanged between the teams until six total champions have been banned, three per team. Blue side then picks their first champion, followed by red side selecting two champions before blue side completes the first phase of picking and banning by also locking in two champions. The teams then begin the second banning phase, starting with red side. The teams interchange until four additional champions have been banned, for a total of ten. Red side also initiates the second picking phase by selecting one champion. Blue side then responds by picking two champions before red side finalises the process by locking in the final champion.
The ultimate goal of the game is to destroy the enemy team's Nexus. This is accomplished through leveling up and purchasing items with gold, the in-game currency. In the lanes there are turrets and inhibitors, defensive objectives for the opposing team to destroy (at least one must be destroyed for the Nexus to take damage), as well as a constant stream of minions that can be killed for gold and experience. Similarly, the jungle contains monsters that reward gold and experience upon defeating them. In the river, there are two major neutral objectives. The Rift Herald spawns on the top side of the river and on death, rewards the team with an active item that respawns the Rift Herald, dealing significant damage to the opposing team's defensive structures. At 20 minutes in, the Rift Herald disappears and is replaced by Baron Nashor. Baron Nashor provides the team that kills it with substantial buffs. On the bottom side of the map, dragons spawn. Random elemental dragons that provide small permanent buffs to the acquiring team continue to spawn until 35 minutes in, at which point the Elder Dragon will spawn that upon being slain, provides the team with a powerful temporary buff. Gold and experience points are also obtained through killing these neutral monsters.
Route to the final T1
Heading into the 2022 Worlds Final, T1 was in the midst of an international title drought since their last major international championship, that being the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational. The team's last Worlds title came during the 2016 edition, which was coincidentally the last Worlds to be held in North America, when T1, then known as SK Telecom T1, won their third world championship after beating Samsung Galaxy, 3–2. A year later, they failed to defend their title as they were defeated by the same team in a 3–0 sweep. Since then, the team won the 2019 League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) Spring and Summer Splits, as well as the 2020 Spring Split. However, T1 failed to make it to the finals of the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational, the 2019 and 2021 League of Legends World Championship, as well as not qualifying for the 2018 and 2020 editions of Worlds. In November 2020, T1 signed Ryu "Keria" Min-seok as their new support for the 2021 season, transferring from DRX. Around the same time, toplaner Choi "Zeus" Woo-je and jungler Mun "Oner" Hyeon-jun were called up from the T1 Academy to the main roster. ADC Lee "Gumayusi" Min-hyeong had been called up in November 2019. In early December 2021, T1 announced their roster for the 2022 LCK season.
T1 was one of the most dominant teams throughout 2022, both domestically and internationally. In the LCK, they would go on a perfect 18–0 record in the 2022 Spring Split, qualifying outright to the semifinals. This was an achievement no other LCK team has accomplished until that point. In the playoffs, T1 would complete the sweep against Kwangdong Freecs in the semifinals before beating Gen.G in the finals with a scoreline of 3–1 to win the Spring Split. T1's victory qualified them for the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), which would be hosted by South Korea. In that tournament, T1 would finish the group stage with another perfect record of 6–0, qualifying them for the tournament's rumble stage. In the rumble stage, T1 had a mixed start, going 2–2 in their first four games before winning five of their last six games to finish the rumble stage as the second seed with a 7–3 win-loss slate. In the semifinals, T1 beat G2 Esports with a 3–0 sweep to qualify for their first MSI Final since the 2017 edition of the event. However, they would suffer a 2–3 defeat to League of Legends Pro League (LPL) representative Royal Never Give Up in the finals. In the Summer Split, T1 would finish as the second seed with a 15–3 win-loss record, qualifying them outright for the semifinals where they would beat DWG KIA with a 3–2 series win. However, the team would suffered a 3–0 sweep in the finals against Gen.G. Despite the loss, T1 garnered the most championship points, giving them an outright qualification to the 2022 World Championship. This would mark T1's eighth Worlds appearance and their third as T1.
In the group stage, T1 was seeded into Group A alongside defending champions Edward Gaming, Fnatic, and Cloud9. After their win over EDG in their first game of the tournament, they suffered a loss to Fnatic in their next game. However, T1 finished the group stage on a four-game winning streak, topping the group with a 5–1 win-loss record. Having advanced from groups into the knockout stage, T1 avenged their MSI 2022 finals loss against Royal Never Give Up in the quarterfinals, 3–2, before beating JD Gaming with a 3–1 series win to advance to their fifth League of Legends World Championship Final.
+T1's route to the finalRoundOpponentResultGroup StageEdward Gaming1–0Group StageFnatic0–1Group StageCloud91–0Group StageFnatic1–0Group StageCloud91–0Group StageEdward Gaming1–0QuarterfinalsRoyal Never Give Up3–0SemifinalsJD Gaming3–1
DRX
Prior to the 2020s, DRX had won two League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) titles — 2017 Summer as "Longzhu Gaming" and 2018 Spring as "Kingzone DragonX", a runner-up finish at the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational and a quarterfinal appearance at the 2017 League of Legends World Championship. However, with the turn of a new decade came struggles for the team, both domestically and internationally. Despite another runner-up finish at the 2020 Summer Split, DRX failed to make it past the quarterfinals in three splits from 2021 to 2022. Moreover, the team suffered a 2–16 record in the 2021 Summer Split, a far cry from their Spring Split performance in the same year where they finished with a 9–9 win-loss slate. After the 2021 season, the team saw a major roster change, as Cho "BeryL" Geon-hee, previously of DWG KIA and was coming off two consecutive Worlds finals appearances, joined as their new support. Veteran ADC Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu would return for his second stint with the team, transferring from Hanwha Life Esports, and Kim "Zeka" Geon-woo joined as the team new midlaner, transferring from the LPL's Bilibili Gaming. All three players would join toplaner Hwang "Kingen" Seong-hoon and jungler Hong "Pyosik" Chang-hyeon for the 2022 LCK season, the latter of which was the longest-tenured player in the team at the time.
The newly revamped roster would have a slow start to the 2022 Spring Split, losing their first three games before nailing their first victory of the split against Kwangdong Freecs. However, despite eventually finishing fourth with an 11–7 win-loss record, DRX would lose to the same team in the quarterfinals, 2–3. After the Spring Split and the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational, the Summer Split commenced. Here, DRX would finish the first two weeks with an undefeated record, eventually finishing with a 9–9 win-loss slate. The team would once again reach the quarterfinals as the 6th seed, but they suffered a 1–3 defeat to Liiv Sandbox. After the domestic season, DRX still had a chance to make it to the 2022 World Championship through the LCK Regional Finals, which determined the third and fourth seeds from the LCK to qualify for Worlds. The team was placed in the lower-bracket semifinal against KT Rolster and won with a result of 3–2, before beating Liiv Sandbox in the lower-bracket final with a similar scoreline to notch the last LCK spot in the tournament. This would mark the team's third Worlds appearance and their second as DRX, having qualified for the 2017 edition as "Longzhu Gaming."