SKT still dominating, name change shenanigans, and Yasuo is back in the meta?
Afreeca Freecs vs. Samsung Galaxy
Going into the first series of the week we had a bit of roster shake up as Afreeca, presumably for testing purposes, subbed out their top and jungler. Presumably, they figured it would be fine as their opponent was only Samsung - well, they figured wrong. Samsung came out of the gate swinging, pulling off a better pick than AF’s own comp of Twisted Fate and Blitzcrank. Still though, Afreeca managed a fantastic pincer maneuver to sweep a fight at Baron; albeit only to have the same happen to them minutes later. With their own buffs and lead intact, SSG took the first match.
Not wanting to lose the series, AF put the starters back in, but it would not make a difference. They wanted to win so badly in fact, they even took their historically high win rate Juggerlucian with Song "Mickey" Yeong-Min on Lulu. Although the Freecs fought hard in the early to mid game, they would not be able to keep up with the massive amounts of damage of the opposing Ezreal and Viktor. Thus, they lost their first series of the season.
Ever vs. Jin Air Greenwings
Unfortunately for Ever one of their star players, the support Kim "Key" Han-Gi, would not be playing for the day. Knowing this, Jin Air still banned out Bard. The reasoning? My guess is that Ever as a whole is so immensely comfortable with a Bard on their team that it wouldn’t matter who played it. In addition to not having a such an instrumental player there, the draft for ESC was probably the worst of the season so far. The not-often seen Kha’Zix and Tristana made an appearance alongside the Karma, Varus, and Ryze. Jin Air on the other hand came away with pretty much a perfect draft. This game was over before it started. ESC put up a great defense for nearly an hour, but when JAG was finally able to pin Ever down they easily swept the fight.
Strangely enough is seems like Ever snapped out of their tilt mode for Game 2. They made very few mistakes, had a better draft, and even won the game after a few key team fights. Despite this turnaround in the series, JAG returned to how they usually play for the final 3rd match: utterly dominating. Like the caster PapaSmithy mentioned during the broadcast, matches 1 and 3 were nearly identical.
Tigers vs. MVP LoL
It was a strange game, this one. Both teams started out making way too many mistakes, although the Tigers seemed to snap out of it faster than MVP and made a complete 180 in their playstyle, like a night and day difference - from second rate, to their signature relentless aggression. They dipped their toes back into the pool of mediocrity around 25 minutes, but quickly pulled back when Hae "Cry" Seong-Min picked up a casual quadra kill to seal the deal.
Game 2 was admittedly a bit silly, MVP actually pulled a Tigers which is funny considering who they’re playing. They took a mega engage composition of Amumu, Ashe, Alistar, and Varus. While this seems a bit odd at first, this sad mummy pocket pick definitely payed off in spades when the early game was greatly in their favor following multiple kills. Coincidentally the game pretty much ended at the same time the previous match did, and at about 25 minutes the spectacular last major team fight took place. MVP pulled off some of the most impressive team fight mechanics I’ve ever seen, they expertly engaged and disengaged multiple times until they were finally able to take an ace for 1. A Baron siege later and we go to an unprecedented Game 3.
The final match was much less crazy. Normals team comps, normals strategies, normal... everything. With normal-ness, an expectation: a Tigers win. And win they did after a nice, slow and steady, taking of objectives for a significantly less action packed game to take the series.
Longzhu vs. KT Rolster
Longzhu stepped up the plate once again for their 3rd series in two weeks. Despite the high number of games, they would not be worse for the wear. In fact, this was easily their best performance of the season. The first match would be a great showcase of this as they started to present their ability to get aggressive. The Barons, the picks, and the towers rolled in as Longzhu took what they wanted when they wanted it, with Kim "Emperor" Jin-Hyeon a ginormous reason why they did so well. His Lucian was just as expected: absolutely phenomenal. One last team fight win after setting a trap later and Longzhu are starting to look like their old selves.
The early game played out nearly identically the next go around, only this time Longzhu couldn't win a fight. Every time KT engaged on them during a siege they crumbled; it really doesn’t help that Kim "Ssumday" Chan-Ho demolished the backline with his Maokai. Similarly to last game, Longzhu attempted to set a trap in an effort to sweep a fight only for the fight to turn on them. Although they were in the lead/the aggressor most of the time, KT was still able to win the match due to their superior team fight ability and patience.
Honestly, I thought the final game was won for Lonzhu at only the draft. They got Shin "Coco" Jin-Yeong, the Korean Sniper, on his trademark Jayce, whereas KT took a low damage defend/poke comp. Seemed like an easy win, but how wrong I was. LZ went back to a wimpy mindset of falling over at the slightest breeze. It only took one fight at Baron for KT to completely run away with the game and siege into the eventual win.
SK Telecom vs. CJ Entus
Finally! SKT’s time to shine in the summer season. What’s even better is the roster update: the man, the legend, ‘the jungle’ Bae "Bengi" Seong-Ung returns. His meta of Rek’Sai and Elise are back! Expect to see a lot of him at least for the next few weeks. As happy as we are about his return, his time off has left him a bit rusty. In Game 1 SKT executed their signature mix of control and aggression quickly shutting down any attempts at a comeback or lead. Although it could've been more clean. Bengi notably didn’t path especially well. Despite this, his vision game was still phenomenal allowing the rest of SKT to safely crush the CJ toplaner even under his own turret. Without too much issue, SKT handily took the first match.
For the next game both teams would play surprisingly poorly. For example CJ’s draft went from ok to garbage. They had Twitch, Soraka, new Shen, Ryze, and Gragas. It's like a Frankenstein of good albeit niche picks. It’s potentially unstoppable regardless of the skill levels between the two teams, but only if they can actually pull it off. Specifically, making it to the late game without losing too much. Even though in the end they lost almost as convincingly as the first match, they did put up more of a fight. On several occasions they were even able to punish SKT’s greed. But cmon, this is SK Telecom; they aren’t about to lose any time soon - much less to CJ.
Ever vs. Tigers
Ever? Tigers? Tsk tsk tsk, what a goof the writer has made! In actuality both of these teams have asked that they be referred as Ever, instead of ESC Ever, and Tigers, instead of the ROX Tigers. I don’t like this change, but what can you do? Putting aside these name change shenanigans, Key is back! Also, Bard continues to be banned against Ever; it’s as the saying goes: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Well, except for their pick of Renekton top. It’s sad really, the once bully king of the top lane is scoffed at these days. It’s really quite disappointing how this game turned out. Despite having this early game power spike champion, Ever didn’t do much with it. I mean sure they got an early 2 drakes, but wasn’t nearly enough to combat the Tiger’s late game. In other words: Ever got destroyed.
Then Game 2 rolled around and Ever thought it would acceptable to let the Tigers get Nidalee - big mistake. The Tigers played a much more methodically controlling playstyle this time around, it was over before you knew it.
Samsung Galaxy vs. MVP LoL
This was a pretty poor series all around. Samsung kicked off the draft with triple scaling, and with triple scaling came a very conservative match. They took what they could, but mostly they let MVP get whatever they wanted. It was very frustrating to watch. Still though, MVP is legitimately cursed, as seen both when they were 1 auto attack away from winning a while back, and here where Samsung stole a Baron. With their scaling comp and a free Baron, SSG took the win pretty easily.
There was a period of quiet early game in the next match disturbed by a big team fight around 24 minutes. Samsung scraped by with a 4-1 blinking health bars then won the game over the course of a long and steady siege.
KT Rolster vs. SK Telecom
Surprisingly SKT dished out some respect bans of Zilean and Taric versus KT. They aren’t even worried about the meta picks. But do they even need to? Just wait for the enemy team to outplay themselves. For example, one of the most laughably bad moments I’ve ever seen in the LCK happened pretty early on. So, desperate to kill senpai, Song "Fly" Yong-Jun bloodthirstily tower dove Lee "Faker" Sang-Hyeok only to die seconds later - oof. These teams were seriously at each other’s throats. However, no matter how much KT kicks and screams, SKT always wins (most of the time).
The whole KT team seemed to be a bit on tilt by this point; Fly making questionable dives, poor macro decision making as a whole, etc etc, but then they took Yasuo top. Hello 2014? Predictably, the Yasuo, and the KT team as a whole, were demolished. As a small aside, what I love about SKT compared to many other teams is their intense focus of winning. That sounds silly, because of course every team wants to win. What I mean is that they only play to win. Many other teams simply play not to lose.
CJ Entus vs. Afreeca Freecs
And finally after a long week of games spread out over days, infuriating piggyback broadcast nonsense (get used to it), and generally not that great of games: we get more mediocrity. *Confetti popper* Anyhow, Afreeca started off by taking a nice early lead, in fact, Nam "Lira" Tae-Yu did spectacularly getting picks across the whole map. AF looked to take the match without much problem, except that they lost their lead because of an overstay at drake which then got punished, hard. CJ took 3 easy kills, a Baron, turrets, and an inhibitor. Just because of a dumb mistake, that’s immensely frustrating. But then a similar thing happens to CJ themselves. Two of their members get caught out in the open and pretty much got destroyed by Af’s far superior team fighting composition. Two wrongs do make a right.
Despite the clunkiness of the previous match, Game 2 was much smoother. Afreeca fought exceptionally well around team fights which were usually initiated by Bard. What sealed the deal was Mickey (full disclosure, I’m a bit of a fanboy), he played incredibly on the Vladimir. Even though the reworked champion has only been around for a bit, Mickey carried hard. His damage soak, damage dealing, and clean rotation of spell - like pooling at the right moments consistently- very clearly carried at least one major team fight. Although the series as a whole wasn’t as clean as it should've been, Afreeca still came away with another win and potentially another perma ban versus Mickey.
