LCK Week 7: Afreeca Rising
For most of the LCK, week 7 was just another day in the office as results went largely as expected. However, for Longzhu, alarm bells continued to sound as they continued on their losing streak as playoffs approach. On the other hand, the Afreeca Freecs continue to look more and more promising as the team continues to gel and become the much hyped up roster the preseason promised.
Featured Match 1: Afreeca Vs SSG
The Robin hood of the LCK, the Afreeca Freecs have long since put in powerful performances against the higher tier teams, stealing wins from impossible odds whilst struggling to reproduce this form against the weaker sides, often giving up cheap games, or even entire series. Against SSG whom have struggled to reproduce their fairy tale form of the World Championships; it was anyone’s guess as to which AF side would show up.
A lackadaisical start to Game 1 would hint towards the charity. Careless and seemingly lazy laning phases from multiple members of the AF side saw SSG take an early lid that would snowball into the mid game. However, mid game team fight wins as well as commendable base defences would see the game stalled out until a botched Baron play saw SSG rout the Afreeca Freecs. Game 2 was an entirely different tale. Having the whole of game 1 to sufficiently ‘wake up’, game 2 was a controlled display of League of Legends from the Afreeca Freecs. Barring surrendering the first blood, it was played entirely at their pace.
Giving up nothing more than one tower and two kills, Kramer was gifted his birthday present as his Ashe picked up a Penta kill to seal the deal and bring the series to a decisive game 3. It was a tight knit and cagey affair as after 25 minutes, the teams were separated by only 3K gold. The result of immaculate vision control, an excellent baron take saw SSG begin to crack the game open as they pulled further and further ahead on the back of taken turrets. However a coordinated turn on an infernal dragon fight turned the game around as Afreeca clawed them back into the game, sweeping the next two team fights, the baron, the elder drake and finally the SSG nexus.
What further made this series incredible was the coming together of the talent on AF. With such a star studded line-up, it was only a matter of time before the members gelled and converted their individual ability to cohesive team synergy, and gel they did. Afreeca’s steady improvement promises an explosive series next Wednesday as SKT look to avenge their first half round robin defeat to Afreeca.
Elsewhere on the Rift
SKT continued their winning ways by cleaning up the bottom of the table with 2-0 wins over both Jin Air and Kongdoo Monsters. The ROX tigers also welcomed back ‘our Mickey’ as their star mid-laner found massive success on Ahri, guiding his team to a win over the Kongdoo Monsters, which surely must start drawing bans. ‘Honourable defeats’ continue to be the tale of the season for the BBQ Olivers as despite what the score lines may show, they lost incredibly close and hard fought matches against both MVP and KT. Finally, whilst Kuro continues to find success with the Afreeca Freecs, the same cannot be said for his old ROX team mates as Pray and Gorilla, along with the rest of Longzhu continue their losing streak since the loss of coach Ssol. Succumbing to 10th place Jin Air, things do not bode well for this talented roster. On the other hand, Score continues to see success on Kt Rolster as they close their week out with a victory over the ROX Tigers.
This week’s Results:
Tuesday
SK Telecom 1 Vs Jin Air GreenWings
BbQ Olivers Vs MVP
Wednesday
Samsung Galaxy Vs Afreeca Freecs
Kongdoo Monsters Vs ROX Tigers
Thursday
Kt Rolster Vs Bbq Olivers
Jin Air GreenWings Vs LongZhu Gaming
Saturday
Afreeca Freecs Vs MVP
SK Telecom T1 Vs Kongdoo Monsters
Sunday
Kt Rolster Vs ROX Tigers
Samsung Galaxy Vs Jin Air GreenWings
