Rekkles has been on the grind to learn support with T1’s LCK Challengers team, but he took matters into his own hands when the chips were down and decided to step into the ADC role himself.
Though T1’s LCK Challengers team have made many a set look close since building a roster with Rekkles on it for 2024, they haven’t been able to get too many wins. And, though they had a good thing going for a while after a loss streak, they’ve fallen right back into losing over and over.
So, to reclaim their footing in the LCK CL, Rekkles dusted off his old role and played Jhin for a match, putting Smash in support.
Though this turned things around for Game 2 and kept them in the set, T1 fans are divided on what Rekkles’ role swap means for the team in the long-term. However, Zven stepped in to defend the veteran player.
Zven backs T1’s controversial Rekkles roleswap
Rekkles had already been playing ADC champs in support, with Senna and Ashe being hotly contested picks for the team at almost all times. Focusing on bot lane and winning through early pressure has been the main strategy for T1 at this point, and they heavily abused the double support item meta when it was a thing.
However, even when Rekkles played champions like Senna, Ashe, and Varus, he had never taken the step of fully taking over the ADC role.
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Until now, that is.
From the start of the game, people were confused. Did Smash and Rekkles forget to swap champions? Was there a mistake on broadcast?
While the broadcast would eventually swap Smash and Rekkles’ player portraits to reflect the role change, the role swap is real. It seemed the team decided it was time to put Rekkles in the driver’s seat.
However, this raises the question: Is this a good thing for T1’s LCK CL development in the long-term? According to Zven, a player who roleswapped to support during his time on Cloud9, this is a positive move for the team.
Yeah I think it's very helpful for both adcs and supports, especially pros/aspiring pros, to play some games of the other role to understand their perspective. I'd say I learned a lot more about ADC/bot lane in the first months of support than I did in if I had played ADC only
— Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen (@Zven) March 7, 2024
For now, Rekkles has only played one match in ADC. But who knows if he’ll be swapping back into the role as T1 tries to secure playoffs?