SKT bleeds, Afreeca breaks my heart, and the Tigers get back their bite.
SK Telecom vs. MVP
SKT continues to showcase their absolute dominance by piledriving MVP into the ground. At only 8 minutes game time, SKT had a perfect 6 kills to 0 along with a whopping 5k gold lead. Several minutes later, SK Telecom put a bullet in the metaphorical horse with a broken leg. As you might imagine, Game 2 was pretty much a formality.
Jin Air Greenwings vs. Afreeca Freecs
Despite his recent poor performance, Mickey still drew 3 bans. Kudos to him. But really, it wouldn’t make a difference either way. Even as a fan of theirs I can confidently say Afreeca is complete garbage right now. Like, losing relegations awful. For example, take a look at this brilliant decision making: Jin Air started drake, but oh! Mickey has been caught out, I guess Afreeca just has to give it up. Well, they could’ve done that, but, how about engaging an obvious 4v5? Fantastic. They were team wiped with hardly a whimper. It’s so painful to watch this previously awesome, scrappy, team take down the top 3 last season, only to look worse than a challenger team this season.
Eck. The next match had a similar moment of losing one’s head for Afreeca. They were doing well in the early game, as they do with a Twisted Fate pick, only to throw everything away at a desperation Baron. Thing is, they didn’t have to do it all! Calling it a ‘desperation’ Baron is disingenuous. What’s funny though is how the game ended. Jin Air has historically been quite bad at closing out games, typically needing to completely clear the entire base to do so. It only makes sense for the super minions to beat JAG to the punch by destroying the nexus themselves.
Fairly textbook series. In the first match, CJ picked up a few early kills and snowballed their lead to win team fights with an eventual game winning siege. Similarly, the Tigers took the aggression in games 2 and 3 and gained control. A few stacked drakes, a Baron or two, and an Elder Dragon later the Tigers are effectively unstoppable.
Settle in, it was a long Game 1 at over 70 minutes, albeit, not very interesting. It was extremely back and forth with little gained or lost until the game winning team fight. Well, team fight isn’t really the best way to describe it. Longzhu’s Sivir happened to catch Samsung’s Ashe with a ricochet crit. With a vital member down so late into the game, SSG tried to run only to be hunted down one by one.
Thankfully a much shorter match for the second game as LZ took an early lead and carried it through the end.
*Cries softly* Oh Afreeca, why must you break my heart so? Just, don’t even watch this series if you’re a fan. It’s sincerely hard to watch. It’s one thing for the new top/jungler to get wrecked, as they have in previous games, but it’s just depressing to watch Mickey get demolished in the mid lane. Otherwise, both teams literally threw their leads over half a dozen times throughout the match. Did I watch the NA LCS by accident? One last meeting in the mid lane decided Ever technically deserved the win, but really, neither did.
Ever quickly dominated Afreeca in the following match, and the descent into darkness continues.
Jin Air Greenwings vs. SK Telecom
Alright guys, it’s SKT. You know what that means: pack it up, no contest. At least, that’s what you would’ve initially thought, especially considering their excellent control early in Game 1. They do have a teeny tiny problem though: every once in a while, with his relentless aggression, Faker occasionally gets caught out. After enough free picks, Jin Air punished SKT hard with a lead even the champs couldn’t overcome.
Hahaha, okay but for real this time. SK Telecom completely and totally destroyed Jin Air in the following match. Would you expect any less with Faker on Ryze, Bang on Ezreal, and Bengi on Gragas? No.
Remember how Faker’s pride can lose SKT games because he gets picked off? *Cough* Like Game 1 *Cough* Same story here. Even with Leblanc, he was outright outplayed by the opposing Lissandra. It really didn’t help SKT’s case when Chei went absolutely mental on Thresh making godlike hooks left and right. He was robbed of the mvp. And for the first time of the season, SKT has dropped a series.
In a bizarre turn of events, Peanut, the first blood king, gave up first blood himself. My have times changed. Despite this, the two teams brawled equally throughout the mid game. No doubt the ending would be close with dying members left and right fighting for vital control of the game in the name of honor, no! For pride! That is what it means to be- wait, what? What do you mean Pray just walked up the midlane to Longzhu’s base and destroyed the nexus? Oh, okay then. I guess you could say Longzhu was Out-Pray-ed.
Game 2 was much quieter, and less… cheesy. Longzhu couldn’t handle the Trundle frontline with Ashe in the back constantly whittling down and kiting back expertly. How about this: don’t give Pray Ashe?
Ever vs. KT Rolster
Oh yeah, Ssumday is like really, really, good. You wouldn’t know if you only started watching recently, but yeah, try-hard pants on today with the Fiora/Trundle picks running Ever over. Well, that, and KT’s fantastic drake control. That massive stat boost helps too I guess.
Definitely one of the closest in skill level series I’ve watched in a long while. The entire set is entirely tit for tat. Small trades or exchanges with no discernable lead. While CJ stuck in there and fought well, it just wasn't enough when Samsung came swinging with the Baron buff. They only barely lost the game winning team fights. Still though, an immensely entertaining series to the end the week.
