T1 suffered a painful loss to telecom rival kt Rolster in Match 2 of the opening day of the 2026 League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) regular season, held on April 1st at LoL Park in Jongno. Filling the vacancy left by head coach Kim “kkOma” Jeong-gyun, who announced he would be taking a break due to personal circumstances, acting head coach Im “Tom” Jae-hyeon found himself back at the helm for the first time in three years. However, his return began with a defeat in his first match.

Tom said, “Recently, practice had been going well, and our coordination was improving, so we came in expecting a good result. It’s disappointing that things didn’t work out.” He added, “To be honest, in scrims we weren’t making this many early-game mistakes. Since it was our first official match today, and also our first match in quite a while, I think it became one of those games where the early mistakes snowballed in a major way,” offering his overall assessment of the day’s series.

Asked what kind of feedback he gave the team after Game 1, Tom replied, “The outcome was poor relative to the turns we used, and there were also mishaps on the other side of the map. On top of that, Pantheon hit level six quickly, and the game tilted very rapidly because of that. We mostly just went over those points.”

As for Game 2, he said, “There was another mishap early in the game, but thankfully Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok did a great job of opening things up with his roams, which allowed us to drag the game out well.” He continued, “But after that, I think we were under a lot of pressure in the side lanes against a composition built around Nocturne. Even in the late game, there were plenty of fights we could have won, but I think we ended up losing because we played too hastily.”

It was T1’s first real on-stage match in quite some time. Asked what felt different compared to practice, Tom said, “While playing the match, I came away thinking that Ryze may actually be much higher priority than we expected. There was pressure from the jungle, of course, but Ryze still seems very good at dictating the game, so I think we may need to reevaluate his tier.”

Finally, Tom concluded the interview by sharing his goals and mindset moving forward: “I hope the players can compete with as little stress as possible, and do so with a happy, healthy mindset and a healthy body.” He added, “Naturally, I feel a sense of pressure as well, but I’m trying to accept it with the mindset that I just have to live well in the present.”

This article was translated from the original that appeared on INVEN.