T1’s Ryu “Keria” Min-seok made history today after picking Caitlyn in the support position, featuring the champion in this role for the first time in the LCK.
The 20-year-old chose the Sheriff of Piltover in T1’s second game against Kwangdong Freecs, surprising everyone. The pick was most likely made to win the laning phase—and it worked, since T1’s bottom lane was ahead after the first 15 minutes of the game.
While Keria played Caitlyn, his partner in crime, Gumayusi, picked Varus. The duo faced off against Zeri and Yuumi, who can easily abuse duos in the bot lane.
With long-ranged poke from Caitlyn and Varus, T1’s duo managed to get ahead pretty quickly. They also received some help from their jungler Oner, with whom they dove the enemy duo and bagged a favorable two-for-one trade. T1’s duo applied hard pressure, taking down the enemy ADC and second-tier turret in around the 10th minute. At the 12th minute mark, Gumayusi had a two thousand gold lead over Zeri.
Caitlyn proved useful in the laning phase. Once the game went on, however, she failed to make an impact in teamfights, especially with aggressive champs like Akali and Renekton targeting Varus. Luckily for T1, the rest of their composition brought all the necessary components to handle the teamfights well, and the game was over in 25 minutes, with T1 closing the series 2-0.
In the first game of the series, Faker also played Sett in the mid lane. This was the first time in 525 days the champion had been picked in the role.