SK Telecom, hot off last year's Worlds win, met a strong challenge in Afreeca in Week 6 of LCK.
Everybody knows one thing about the organization SK Telecom T1. They are good at video games. They already have a storied history as a top Starcraft: Brood War and Starcraft II team and their League of Legends team is no joke either. As the world champs of the 2013 and 2015 World Championship, they are a fearful enemy.
Coming strong off of the 2015 Worlds victory, they had all the momentum to steamroll through this week’s LCK. But, it wasn’t kind to them. They had already lost to Longzhu Gaming a few days before. Then they played against a rather new team: Afreeca Freecs.
Game 1 was an easy victory for SK Telecom. They played with all the cohesion and precision that one would expect from a world class, championship winning team. They were going to be the clear favorites for the upcoming IEM event. But, Game 2 was where things got dicey.
It started, as always, with the lineups. SKT picked Gangplank, Rumble, Corki, Kalista and Alistar. Afreeca chose a more controversial selection: Poppy, Graves, Caitlyn, Braum and Kassadin. The Void Walker was the point of contention. Assassins can be a tough sell. In the right composition, with the right plays, they can quickly grow out of control and decimate the enemy team one by one. On the other hand, if shut down, they can fall apart and become dead weight.
At first, it seemed like SKT had this series in the bag, soon to be a quick 2-0. At the 18 minute mark, it would have been a perfect game if not for Afreeca’s first blood. Then, SKT's Bae "Bang" Jun-sik made a mistake. He facechecked a brush near Blue side’s Red buff. The following teamfight and chase through the jungle led to four kills, three of them for AF's Nam "Lira" Tae-yu's Graves, putting them ahead in killcount. While still behind in objectives and gold, SKT’s downtime gave Afreeca a chance to take some towers and close that gap.
A little while later, SKT's Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok got caught by Lira near Purple side’s Red buff. Bang died again shortly after. A weathered Bae "Bengi" Seong-un and Lee "Wolf" Jae-wan tried to contest Afreeca’s Baron attempt and found themselves dead. By 30 minutes, the tide of the game had long shifted. With the kill count at 12-4, Afreeca’s favor, SKT struggled to find footing. They squandered their superior draft and languished in a 7k gold deficit. By 35 minutes, they were 16-5. After a convincing comeback, Afreeca won and took the series to game 3.
So what allowed the comeback?
The clearest turning point is Bang’s brush facecheck at 18 minutes. It gave Afreeca a collection of clean kills and early objectives. Then there were the later kills, the failed Baron contest and SnowFlower’s ult that caught all of SKT. They’re all pieces that make up the whole of their victory.
More importantly, engaging after Bang’s facecheck broke SKT’s momentum and gave Afreeca the chance they needed. The facecheck demonstrated that SKT, despite their strong game 1, were still susceptible to mistakes. If Afreeca wanted to make a comeback, it would be best to wait for SKT’s mistakes and punish them.
The other integral component is that Afreeca didn’t give into the weakness of their draft. Even with the risky Kassadin pick, Mickey never died. He contributed to teamfights and eliminated stragglers when SKT fled. Lira never died either on Graves, allowing a great source of damage and control throughout the game. The old adage remained true: never let a Kassadin composition get back in the game.
What’s clear is that despite their initial setbacks, Afreeca maintained composure. They remained collected enough to punish SK Telecom’s mistakes. After they began their comeback, they played with impeccable solidarity. Not getting caught or feeding individual kills to SKT stopped a good source of gold and experience. It caused SKT to unsafely contest objectives. It caused them to make more mistakes and crumble beneath Afreeca’s surgical dissection. Afreeca took each of SKT’s mistakes and ran with it. They ran right to victory.
