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LCK Spring 2016: Week 12 recap

(Courtesy of OGN)

KT vs. ROX: A Peek into the Spring Finals

 

ROX Tigers vs. KT Rolster *Series of the Week*

What a killer start to a week with the most consistent giants on the standings: the ferocious and hungry ROX Tigers versus the tried and true second place KT Rolster. Game 1 kicked off with heavy skirmishing teams, ROX with Kalista and Alistar while KT went with Azir, Maokai and Sivir. Unusually, Yun "Peanut" Wang-ho put the team behind early. Typically he’s the one coming away with first blood, not the other way around. When KT was able to pick up a few more picks, notably Peanut again, they started, and took, Baron which lead to an unstoppable siege to win the match.

Now the ROX Tigers are no stranger to weird drafts, for example, in the first couple weeks of the season they did a 1 game experimentation of hyper engage consisting of Malphite, Nocturne and others. This time was something similar, a composition of hyper… damage. They took Kennen, Varus, Jhin, and Kindred; which actually worked better than one might initially think. Sure they’re incredibly squishy, but they have that Lamb’s Respite to save and heal them, albeit this is crazy difficult and requires a phenomenal level of team work to pull off. Oh hey! The ROX Tigers are known for their excellent team work! KT on the other hand attempted to counter the ROX comp with their own Rammus and Poppy, a good frontline true, but good enough?

The early game broke down just about as well as it could’ve for the Tigers, they collected a few picks with both Varus and Jhin, things looked to go smoothly. Towards the mid game however KT put into motion their own game plan: the teleport flank Rammus. With the little armored rat in the backline, ROX should be crippled. Should be. But that Kindred ult, as mentioned before, completely turned the tide of multiple battles. ROX was able to outlive the initial burst and mow down all whom stand in their way. Towards the late game however the weakness of their comp really started to show, they simply couldn’t handle the repeated Rammus teleport flanks. With those hard engagements, KT were able to catch a foothold which propelled themselves into the driver’s seat of the match, for a while anyway. The last team fight to end this bloody long match was ROX’s Kennen flash-ult’ing into KT’s backline, which allowed the rest of ROX to mop up for the win.

I’m back! Not Jax though, Ryze. Ryze is back, back again. After the ‘world ending catastrophic I’m quitting league rito don’t know how to balance’ nerf to his ultimate, the runner’s mage graces the league with his return. Why is he back? Beats me. His Q received some buffs, but I didn’t think it would be enough for him to see a return. As we’ll see in the coming week, he’s back to priority 1 status. Along with Ryze, ROX also picked up Gangplank, Elise, and Lucian; very skirmish and split push heavy. Even weirder than Ryze, KT took Malzhar along with Sivir, Graves, and Maokai; very team fighting heavy. Much less back and forth in this game as opposed to the previous, an unopposed KT killed anyone in their way. The roaming Malzahar/Graves to suppress and burst is something I never really considered as something, to do at all, much less be so incredibly powerful. With such an incredible gold lead, solely through picks, KT sieged and sieged until they emerged victorious as the second team to take down the nigh invincible ROX Tigers.

(Courtesy of OGN)

 

Longzhu vs. Samsung Galaxy

The aptly named Korean sniper Shin "Coco" Jin-yeong, on his trademark Jayce, returned to the rift. Samsung Galaxy attempted to match this poke/pick with their own Varus and Lissandra. However, this match was the Coco show. He went absolutely mental, from long range snipes to getting in someone’s face for an execute. He did it all. Not alone though, his team performed around this pick extraordinarily well by backing him up whenever he went off. Finally though the game eventually ended with a bang, Coco went ham and deleted Samsung’s backline. Beautiful play.

Longzhu picked up on the Ryze fever along with more poke for Coco on Varus. Samsung with just a simple team fight comp headed by Viktor and Sivir. Open and shut game all said and done. Longzhu snowballed hard with Lucian, then they went on to sneak a baron with only two people. A teleport flank by Ryze later and GG.

(Courtesy of OGN)

 

Jin Air Greenwings vs. Afreeca Freecs

Hilariously, Song "Mickey" Yeong-min pulled in 3 whole bans targeted at him. This doesn’t really make sense to me because he isn’t even that great of a carry, his ADC and top laner are doing just as well if not better. Regardless, Mickey still got Corki, so, he’s going to carry no matter of how many bans you waste on him. This match is the epitome of Jin Air Greenwings’ downfall in the second half of this season, they keep losing major team fights because of their poor coordination. The empathetic Mickey tried as hard as he could to throw JAG a bone by special packaging into death, however AF disregarded such antics by winning the 4v5 team fight and the match anyway.

Same story as last game, poor coordination by Jin Air let Afreeca do whatever they please. 5 dragons, Barons, inhibs, the buffet of objectives all for the low low cost of absolutely nothing. What’s funny is how obvious JAG are on tilt as opposed to the beginning of the season, compare the two teams and take away the nameplates and one wouldn’t believe they were even from the same region. For example, JAG’s teleport flanking Rammus would hit a minion on his way in, what are you going to do with that? Same as the number of games won in the past few weeks: nothing.

 

Kongdoo Monster vs. SK Telecom

What a dominate showing by SKT. They started by trying to all in on an engagement, it started to go South then our lord and savior Faker-senpai showed up and wrecked everyone in the fight and came away with a 4-1. Then, the snowball began. A 20 minute baron plus few minutes later and the game is already over. Faker is so broken, pls nerf.

Gang "Blank" Seon-gu on Lee Sin, surprising it took this long to see a rookie jungler on the ever meta king of the jungle; otherwise, average skirmishing comps for both. The early game is an interesting one, typically game two’s of a set are either blow outs or closely fought and head to a game 3, here, KDM fight back hard all throughout the match but unfortunately for them weren’t ever able to catch a handle to grab onto. What really made it sad is that they were pretty much in the lead the whole game, all it took to lose the game was one mistake, one flub, misclick, brainfart, whatever you want to call it, of KDM’s Azir using his ult at a very strange time. SKT, like a hungry wolf, pounced on the metaphorically wounded KDM - being given a finger, they took the arm. With that now open nexus, all it took was a single ace, no matter how bloody so long as one survived, and no one better than Bang to finish the incredibly close match. Had things gone just a touch, a hair, differently, this definitely would have gone to a 3rd game.

(Courtesy of OGN)

 

SBENU Sonicboom vs. Longzhu

Pft, SBENU versus Longzhu? No need to cover this one, it’s over before it even started. OR DID IT? THE SUSPENSE. Game 1: SSB first picked Ryze followed by Sivir and Lulu, you know what this spells? Ryze the hedgehog, gotta go fast - engage and destroy. Longzhu with the ho-hum siege comp of Azir, Nidalee, and Trundle. This match had one of the lowest kill counts I’ve ever witnessed, legit for a large majority of the game there was only a single death. Monte would be proud. However it’s not all tactics and strategy, simply put neither team could engage. SBENU certainly tried with their blue bullet speeding by from a teleport flank, but that’s not enough. Finally though the game ended pretty much the only way it could: through a face check. SBENU caught the two picks then snowballed that into baron and a won team fight at dragon which lead to game over shortly after.

It has been long foretold in the deepest archives of Runeterra, a sacred prophecy: ‘Jarvan mid 2016.’ The day has finally come, Oh "Sasin" Seung-ju of SBENU, whom has made a name for himself with weird picks, has brought out the Prince of Demacia. This whole match was a treat to watch, it’s pretty much what I would expect out of a duo queue between a mid lane Jarvan and his pal the jungle Graves going from lane to lane killing fools every time their ults were off cooldown. Jarvan and Graves made… just… so many picks. Naturally, SBENU attempted a two man baron, as you do, however Longzhu saw it, and we all know what happens when a cheeky baron is discovered right? (flashbacks to every time it’s gone sour) WRONG. SBENU turned on a dime and aced Longzhu like it’s nothing then rushed the nexus for one of the biggest upsets of the season. Exceptionally entertaining match, so good, so unexpected.

 

CJ Entus vs. KT Rolster

In case you don’t watch NA LCS this match is quite the treat! CJ played pretty much exactly like Team SoloMid do, that is, the mid laner is a solo queue star carrying every game to the best of their ability while the rest of the team mills about with a thumb up their ass. CJ tried to win a team fight to get back into the game but just didn’t have what it took, conversely, nice clean game by KT.

Pretty much the same situation for Game 2, Gwak "BDD" Bo-seong fought hard to keep his team in the game but it wasn’t enough. KT bleed CJ out over a long period of time and then clean aced them for the win, effectively dashing CJ’s hopes at playoffs.

(Courtesy of OGN)

 

SK Telecom vs. Samsung Galaxy

Quite possibly the pokei-est poke comp League has ever seen, SKT brought Nidalee, Jayce, and Ezreal. Samsung countered with a bruiser comp of Graves, Lucian, and Ryze; it would have been better with Sivir honestly, but still not bad at running at the enemy. It’s cool that SKT is trying new things! That’s about the only positive thing I can say about their performance, overall they didn’t seem comfortable on it. They are a team that likes to skirmish early, this poke comp is… the opposite of that. All Samsung had to do was engage a team fight off the back of a home guard teleport then win the game.

A much better team comp by SKT this time around with Ekko top, of which would become huge, Lissandra, and Graves; this comp allows them to do what they do best: go ham. Samsung with an average team fight comp of Kalista, Azir, and Maokai. Super uneventful match all in all, SKT got picks early and snowballed them into a Baron which lead to a siege into the win. Incredibly by the book.

Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok on Karma! That’s neat, it’s like B-Team Lulu, otherwise similar team comp. Hilariously Samsung brought out one of the worst drafts I have seen in the LCK, the rare 0 damage whatsoever composition of Gragas, Lulu, poppy, and Ashe. But! But! Ashe is damage! As far as ADC’s go, not really. Honestly I would equate this to a dynamic queue game, Samsung is the bunch of nobodies running… whatever, while SKT are the grouped as 5. For example, they immediately got an iron grip on the botlane by repeatedly ganking as a team. Ashe couldn’t get a CS without SKT looking to dumpster her again. With their only damage source unable to do a damn thing, Samsung crumble and SKT got an ace for nothing.

(Courtesy of OGN)

 

ROX Tigers vs. Afreeca Freecs

Afreeca are coming into this series as the Rocky underdog looking to take down Ivon Drago as it were. AF have already taken down ranks 2-4, but can they take down number 1? You come at the king, you better not miss. Here’s something new: Peanut got first blood. I mean how often does that even happen, hahaha (like 70% of all ROX Tiger’s games as it turns out). Afreeca pulled off an impressive tower dive in response and set the score even, too bad they lost back to back team fights which put them hopelessly behind.

Welcome to the Song "Smeb" Gyeong-ho show featuring Ekko! RIP Solo Queue because top Ekko with Sunfire Cape is officially meta. Although Afreeca did fight back against the Ekko with dragons, turrets etc. quite well. Despite this awe inspiring ferocity to never give up, AF couldn’t handle the fed Ekko and promptly lost after getting aced.

(Courtesy of OGN)

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