T1 is running it back with its 2023 League of Legends roster after winning the World Championship, despite multiple players saying they were set to leave regardless. T1 top laner Choi ‘Zeus’ Woo-je revealed why he stayed in a new interview.
T1 had an interesting off-season after winning the 2023 League of Legends World Championship. Multiple players said the team was set to disband following the event, win or lose, due to the collective trauma of finishing second across multiple major international tournaments.
The T1 roster placed second at the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational, Worlds, and the LCK Summer Playoffs. In 2023, T1 finished third at MSI before eventually lifting the Summoner’s Cup at Worlds.
The roster decided to stick together following the win and is going to run it back with the same lineup in 2024. In an interview with a South Korean outlet, T1 top laner Zeus revealed what made him choose to return to the LCK squad.
Zeus says why he chose to remain at T1 for the 2024 season
On December 6, Zeus was interviewed by KBS, a public broadcasting news outlet in South Korea, about winning Worlds 2023. The player was asked about the win, and whether he preferred to win against his lane opponent and lose the game or vice versa.
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A Reddit user translated part of the interview and picked out a point where Zeus spoke about the off-season.
“It came very close to me leaving T1, but then something inside me spoke out… I don’t want to leave. To be honest, I have always felt terrible whenever a Korean team lost to a Chinese team in the past,” he said.
There have been conflicting rumors about Zeus and his new contract with T1. The 19-year-old player allegedly either took a massive pay cut to stay with the team, or is being paid equivalent to his peers in the LCK.
Regardless, it seems that Zeus rejected his offers from China and chose to stay with the Korean team that he thinks has the best chance of beating their LPL rivals at international events. The player is one of the few in the LCK who has stuck around on his original squad from 2023 as multiple teams have swapped around players leading into the 2024 League Esports season.