By John Christopher Aquino
T1 avenged its upper bracket loss to Russia’s Virtus.pro (VP) in their grand final rematch of the ESL One Summer 2021 Monday (Philippine time).
Filipino Carlo “Kuku” Palad, who captains T1, led the South-east Asian team in a 3-2, best-of-five victory against VP.
T1 won the first game in 31 minutes after Nuengnara “23savage” Teeramahanon’s Phantom Assassin posed problems to VP’s disabler team comp.
VP then won the next two games, but T1 bounced back in Game 4 with Kuku’s Axe disabling the rhythm of VP while 23savage’s Lifestealer cleans house.
Game 5 saw an early game advantage for VP as the Russians won almost every encounter in the early minutes of the game.
However, T1 came back through a successful Roshan teamfight, picking off VP’s threats one-by-one.
The game went to T1 after it pushed to the Radiant Ancient at the 40-minute mark, giving VP immense pressure.
“We are the champions of the ESL One Summer 2021! GGWP to Virtus pro! Big thanks to ESL for a great event and to all our SEA fans who stayed up all those nights to support us. See you soon at #TI10!,” announced T1’s official Twitter page after winning the $175,000 prize.