After a week off for the new years celebration, the Korean League of Legends scene (aswell as the LPL) will be back in full swing and it will start out with a highly anticipated rematch between two of the biggest names in Korean LoL: SK Telekom T1 vs. NaJin.
| Role | Najin e-mFire | SK Telekom T1 |
|---|---|---|
|
Top | Lee "Duke" Ho-Seong | Jang "Marin" Gyeong-Hwan |
| Jungle | Cho "Watch" Jae-geol | Bae "Bengi" Seong-ung |
| Mid | Yu "Ggoong" Byeong-jun | Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, Lee "Easyhoon" Ji-hoon |
| AD Carry | Lee "Zefa" Jae-min, Oh "Ohq" Gyu-min | Bae "Bang" Jun-sik |
| Support | Kim "Pure" Jin-sun, Jang "Cain" Nu-ri | Lee "Wolf" Jae-wan, Lee "Picaboo“ Jong-Beom |
Both teams have a long history in Korean League of Legends, especially Najin reaching all the way back to the first season of Champion. Since Riot introduced the "one team per organization" rule, however, both teams have gone through major changes and had to reform their rosters.
Najin, who kept most players from their White Shield roster that played at Season 4 worlds, lost one of their star players as Baek "Save" Young-Jin took part of the "Chinese Exodus" as he left to play for Invictus Gaming. His spot was filled by Lee "Duke" Ho-Seong from Najin's Black Sword roster, and he would turn out to become the arguably best top laner in Korea. Najin is one of the teams who fields two bot lane duos with Cain and Ohq as well as Zefa and Pure. Both duos could not differ more in style: Ohq is a playmaking AD Carry who will go hard to try and carry the game and Cain's signature champion is Annie which is basically good at only one thing, going ham. Zefa and Pure are to be found at the other end of the aggression spectrum playing very conservatively and safe, focusing on going even and not dying with champions like Corki and Thresh, respectively. MonteCristo sums them up like this: "Zefa won't win you the game but you know what you will get. Ohq can win you the game, but he can also loose you the game." Najin's style therefore depends heavily on which players they end up putting in the booth.
After PoohManDuh retired and both Piglet and Impact left to play in NA, the SK Telecom T1 roster as it exists today is basically the former SKT S team with Bengi instead of Horo, and either Faker or Easyhoon in mid lane and Piccaboo - the innovator of roaming supports - as sub for Wolf. The way they play depends on which mid laner the choose to use, since Easyhoon has probably never played a competitive game on an assassin but excels at long range poke champion and conrol mages i.e. being the only player in the world to still play Karthus and carry with it. Faker needs no introduction as he can play seemingly any champion at a competitive level and specializes in assassins. Their bottom lane plays the CLG.eu style (except at a higher level) meaning they usually aim to go even in lane and play safely. Bang in particular fits his role perfectly as cleanup AD Carry once the fight has broken loose: he can sit on the outside with Ezreal or Corki while the enemy focuses Faker and just collect kills, which also explains why his KDA is quite impressive. Playstile wise it is very much like what Steelback does for Fnatic over in Europe.
At the end of the OGN pre-season, SKT and Najin stood in first and second place, respectively, head and shoulders above the competition. The first time they met during the opening week of LCK (aka OGN) it made for a very interesting best of three series. In the first game of the series SKT showed a blatant weakness which recurred all throughout the season: a poor pick a ban phase. They took a gigantic risk by blind picking Xerath on the first rotation on red side for Faker. Najin built their composition around this pick to completely counter it with Jarvan IV, Rumble, Annie and Zed. The latter two being Cain's and Ggoong's best champions, surprisingly left open due to some arguably questionable bans by SKT.
In game, Najin abused the fact that SKT picked a heavy late game composition with Tristana (pre-rework) and Dr. Mundo and didn't have pressure in any of their lanes (except Faker going even). Faker was heavily targeted by Jarvan and Rumble getting completely shut down. After a disastrous dragons fight by SKT in the mid game, Najin snowballed completely out of control which led to Bang - uncharacteristically - dying to Ggoong's Zed multiple times during splitpushing and Duke wreaking havoc with his Rumble ultimates. The game ended with Najin completely rolling over their opposition in only 32 minutes with a 28:6 kill score.
The second game of the series it looked like both teams had a silent agreement to completely switch roles, as this time it was Najin's turn to pick up Tristana and Dr. Mundo. SKT picked Xerath again (this time for Easyhoon) but with Janna and Maokai to have peel and a frontline that is not as scale-reliant as Dr. Mundo. Bang went with Corki this game which gave SKT the advantage in bottom lane, as well as having more poke than only the Xerath in contrast to the first game. After an extremely uneventful early game SKT exploded by winning a decisive dragon fight in the mid game by kiting out Najin. From there on everything crumbled for Najin and Easyhoons Xerath could do all the damage necessary without fear of getting "equalized" due to a more well rounded composition from SKT this time around. This match was even more one sided than the first game and concluded after 34 minutes with 15:1 in kills.
After both teams had given each other a serious beating no one knew what to expect from the final match. Najin decided to try and surprise SKT with Ohq locking in Kalista and being the first pro to play her in competitive game worldwide. This time around both teams got solid compositions. Most notably, SKT waited for their last pick to decide on their mid lane and went for LeBlanc, Faker's signature Champion that he is undefeated on.
The game started out with a very smart roam play from Wolf's Janna where he went mid lane at level 1, but had level'd his Howling Gale instead of the shield. That resulted in Ggoong burning his flash and still giving up first blood to Faker, who would proceed to really put the hurt on Ggoong, bullying him in lane. This play also showed what made SKT win the game: excellent roam play from Wolf especially in the early game and another otherworldly performance by Faker. Ultimately, the world champion spiraled completely out of control ending the game with a pentakill.
Predicting how the rematch will play out is hard to say as both teams can play differing styles depending on what players they use. Najin's best shot at winning is probably by putting Duke on a champion with which he can control the game especially in teamfights e.g. Rumble, or fielding Ohq and building a composition around him and let him carry as they have done in the past. SK Telecom should also try to get Marin on a comfort champion that fits with what Faker plays (preferably an assassin) so he can affect the game with his maximum potential, like Lissandra for example. With that being said I expect Lissandra, Rumble and Gnar to be hotly contested picks throughout this series. Also SKT should refrain from letting Ggoong get his hands on Zed since he had some of his best performances on the master of shadows and it is his most comfortable champion by quite a margin.
In the end there is only one way to find out what is going to happen: Tune into twitch.tv/riotgames , tomorrow at 10am CET/1 am PST and get in on the action!
A preview of the schedule of this week's LCK can be found here:
Image Credit: reddit.com/r/loleventvods
