The second round robin begins and with it, a brand new LCK caster.
SBENU Sonicboom vs. Jin Air Greenwings
These two team comps could not be more different, SSB with heavy poke and JAG with pick. The poke versus pick is not one often seen but interesting nonetheless. With such vastly different win conditions it’s easy to notice if a team is winning or not. Early on SSB took a surprising early lead with multiple well executed tower dives. A bit later, as a team effort, they pulled off another beautiful tower dive resulting in a sizeable gold lead.
Until the late game, it was painfully apparent that each team played to their own win condition. In other words, SBENU wanted to siege so they continued to siege. JAG wanted to get a pick and snowball, which they repeatedly attempted to do. Despite this glorious battle of clashing win conditions, SBENU completely flubbed in the late game and gave up all their built up pressure. Being free to do as they please, Jin Air punished that mistake hard, so hard in fact they won the game almost immediately after.
In the next game, JAG took a safer team fighting composition while SBENU went for… hyper engage? Rammus top, Nautilius mid, Siver adc, and Alistar support. You could not get more team fight engage comp if you tried, and I loved it. It was simple and brutally effective, something I wish more teams would do instead of these poke/picks comps. Unfortunately, SSB got destroyed in every aspect. I mean, they did pretty well in the early game with YeonJun "Flawless" Seong on the Kindred, but otherwise… total annihilation.
Big hype for BoSeong "BDD" Gwak, the new midlaner for CJ Entus. Supposedly the next big thing, he dominates Korean solo queue but how will he handle professional play? Regardless, CJ played it safe with split pushing while KDM opted into poke. Early on, CJ dominated the match with immense pressure from picks and map rotations. A bit later on, CJ gave up their pressure and KDM went on to dictate the pace of the game by taking baron and immediately transitioning into siege mode. Another baron and tower push later, KDM surprisingly took game 1.
Wanting to play a bit more of a carry champ, BDD got put on Azir for the second game, a champion we have not seen a long time. Alongside some nerfs, his main attributes of being a zone control and wave clear mage was usurped by Viktor. However, even Viktor has seen some nerfs lately which makes him less viable. Both CJ Entus and Kongdoo Monster took team fighting win conditions for match 2. Clean cut game by all accounts. By the 23 minute mark the gold counter was dead even, however, soon enough CJ took a favorable fight and snowballed that into global pressure. As soon as Entus started to bait a baron, KDM came crawling to their destruction pushing this series to a third match.
Funnily enough, nearly identical team comps this time around. Seems like CJ tried to say, ‘we’ll do the same exact thing except better.’ Despite KDM having played amazingly aggressive, they eventually got torn apart by BDD’s spectacular Orianna ultimates. Still though, Kongdoo put up impressive fights throughout the entire game, it would not surprise me if they rose in the ranks with just that mindset alone.
Terrible draft by Samsung, no clear game plan to speak of. KT however took the clear cut siege comp. Considering these teams’ history it’s no surprise to me that both are dead even by 35 flippin’ minutes. Finally though, after multiple major baron plays, KT edged out ahead for the win.
Again, Samsung only partially committed to a win condition, instead, they went for a diluted pick comp. Similar to last game, KT looked to push their gold lead via turrets with poke and siege. Much faster game overall, KT took the lead early and didn’t let up for the eventual win. Albeit, pretty boring series overall.
ROX Tigers vs. Longzhu
‘Why would you go for triple AD when you can have QUADRA AD?!?’ – Longzhu. The Tigers aren’t having any of that, instead they went for a pick comp. Despite having looked for a quiet early game the situation quickly became disastrous start for ROX, their ADC and support were killed early by the opposing ‘bot’ lane. A bit later on, they even lost a skirmish 2-4. But, as they have before, they go on to dominate the opposition with their S-rank level team fighting ability, no matter the situation or gold lead. The final nail in the coffin for LZ is the trademark baron bait into team fight and eventually, the win.
I have never seen the wave clear team composition, but if ROX took it and won, then it must be something worth considering. Longzhu drop the 4 AD nonsense and instead go for the much safer, much more popular, pick comp. Just like KT before them, the second game is much more clean and fast as opposed to the preceding match. ROX took the lead early and controlled the map with an iron fist. They took the series, and remain perfect.
Last match of the week, and surprisingly interesting. CJ took the team fight archetype while SSB went for triple AD. Pretty clean game by CJ, they layered on the pressure early which forced SBENU into unfavorable situations. A baron bait into nearly a clean ace later, we go to game 2.
CJ on that slit push while SSB tried to siege. The real story however is Flawless on Lee Sin. For some reason, this nobody that does nothing in 99% of his matches becomes a GOD on the blind monk. His mechanics and map pressure are spectacular, but only on Lee Sin. Needless to say, Flawless completely dictated the pace of match and eventually won his team the game.
In match number 3 both looked to skirmish, and take turrets - but who can do it better? For a large portion of this slow match SBENU were actually in control. Despite this they tried to flank CJ but… get destroyed…somehow? Very strange turnaround, but nonetheless CJ just barely come away with a 2-0 for the week. And even though SBENU went 0-2, they are playing better than before which is awesome, they may even win a game before relegations.
