LCK Week 8:
Week 8 features Skt and Samsung cleaning out the closet as they try and break long losing streaks against Afreeca and Kt respectively.
Featured Match 1: Sk Telecom 1 Vs Afreeca Freecs
Game 1
Game 1 opened with a very intriguing draft. Any game with Marin and Huni automatically makes Rumble much more valuable than he already is. Some perhaps remember that during their season 3 World Championship winning dominance, Skt often gave Marin the top lane counter pick. As such, the fact that Afreeca let Skt take Rumble without much of a fight suggested that they had an answer. Enter, Dr. Mundo, and it would’ve worked too if it wasn’t for Afreeca’s meddling jungler. Mowgli’s early over extension into Peanut’s blue side jungle gifted over two kills to the SKT mid jungle duo, and Skt never looked back.
Despite the Mundo curve ball that AF attempted to pitch, Skt clearly identified their win conditions and stifled Afreeca’s, accelerating the game beyond Afreeca’s reach. Running a very pick heavy comp, Skt abused their advantage by coupling together Talon’s mobility, Karma’s speed boost as well as Ashe and Rumble ults to pick off the opposition time and time again. A greedy triple scaling draft from Afreeca didn’t do Afreeca any favours as Skt diverged from their normally very defensive playstyle. Time and time again, Skt simply ignored the split pushing Mundo and forced brawls all over the map. Accruing a 9K gold lead in 20 minutes, the game was all but over as Skt choked out the last vestige of Afreeca’s chances of a comeback.
It must be noted that in an isolated scenario, the Mundo was a good pick into the Rumble, often pulling two or three members of the SKt line up down to deal with him. Credit is due to coach Kkoma for another amazing draft and a mention as well the one on one coaching sessions with Peanut, as the jungler continues to improve from week to week. An honourable mention also goes out to Bang’s pin point arrows.
Game 2
Game 2 saw Afreeca reintroduce Spirit into the jungle as he comes off his own personal training camp of 44 ranked games in the last four days. Coming out of his hyperbolic training chamber, Spirit looked poised to turn the series around. Skt reverted to their mid/late game tendencies, drafting a scaling comp. However, this time, it would be Skt who fell behind early. Recognizing their relative early game strength, it was Afreeca’s turn to be on the front foot. Intelligent warding and proactive play brought the fight to Skt as Afreeca liberally used their ults to hunt for picks. The constant pressure from Rengar ults, Ashe ults and Talia ults cut away at SKt’s defences and at 47 minutes, Skt found themselves down 15K and 3 inhibitors.
Another standout performance came from the unkillable top god, Marin, who often drew two, three or sometimes even four members of Skt to deal with him whilst the rest of his team pillaged towers and inhibitors. More often than not, his immaculate knowledge of champion limits and, in no small part, Afreeca’s monstrous gold leads allowed him to walk away from these collapses allowing them to win on both their strong and weak sides of the map. The story of Afreeca’s improvement also continued with Kuro, his use of the weaver’s wall was a thing to behold. As soon as he hit 6, Skt found themselves blowing flashes or without an escape route at all as Afreeca collapsed on isolated members and quickly converted objectives, strangling Skt out of the game.
Game 3
As it begins, so shall it end. Game 3 saw a near perfect mirror draft of game one. Dr. Mundo made a return as the Rumble counter pick as Taliyah forced a crucial ban from Skt. The only difference in the team comps is a change of support as Zyra is brought in to help the Ashe push and zone the dive heavy composition that Skt had once again drafted. The question must have been on everyone’s mind, had Skt not picked up two early kills in Game 1, would the Mundo have been the difference between the two sides?
In the previous two games, Ashe had proved the better to Ezreal as the prodigal explorer succumbed to the pick power of the Frost Archer. Game 3 proved different in one last way. Bang’s Ezreal gave up the early tear as is the norm for a sheen rush. And it proved all the difference. With mid top and jungle being evenly matched, the extra poke and pushing power at the hands of a man who made his name on the champion was too much for Afreeca’s bot lane to handle. Getting the shove in lane, picking up multiple kills and even a blue buff steal, Bang’s Ezreal slowly edged Skt farther and farther into the lead.
Skt, working off their bot lane advantage cruised to a Baron on the back of another trademark Huni Rumble ult as Afreeca funnelled into a choke trying for a pick. This time, Mundo wasn’t even close to getting going as Skt ruthlessly closed the game out, using the baron buff to smash their way into the AF base. An age old adage, Afreeca forgot that if you give Skt an inch and they’ll take the nexus. Skt Defeat Afreeca 2-1, breaking their curse.
Despite Mundo being chanelled all of the team’s resources; it didn’t prove quite as impactful as AF may have hoped. At the same time, if Mundo received all of AF’s resources, another resource hungry champion such as Ryze may not have been the most optimal pick. Particularly when Kuro had two rather poor games with the champion. Perhaps a stronger wave clearing and zoning champion would have better let Ashe and Mundo scale into the late game, of which Victor, comes to mind.
Featured Match 2: Samsung Galaxy vs KT Rolster
Game 1
After watching SKt shatter their Afreeca curse, SSG looked to join their fellow Worlds finalists in shaking off the bogey men and ending their 0-8 run against Kt in the regular season. Having beaten Kt in their miraculous gauntlet run at the end of the Summer 2016 season, they were since perfect gamed by the new look Kt squad. A win here will see SSG close the gap between the two sides to just one match win in the standings.
Game 1 saw Kt off to the races. Individual and macro outplays across the map made it seem like another day in the office for kt. When Pawn’s Ryze solo killed Crown’s Syndra, juking all of her skill shots whilst landing all of his own, the game was pretty much over in the hearts of SSG. However, the true hero of the game must be Smeb. Starting off the series with another monstrous performance, his Renekton, constantly bullied Cuvee’s Camille out of lane, out skirmished the Samsung side and bought time aplenty for the rest of his team to take objectives around the map as Samsung kept trying to shut down the gigantic croc. The game culminated in Ambition and Cuvee falling to Renekton as Smeb picked up the 1 V 2 solo double kill.
Game 2
It was a rather lacklustre display for SSG’s Ambition. As such, game 2 saw the return of Haru in the jungler. However, Samsung’s jungle woes would continue as SSG were outplayed at level one to give up two kills and the red buff in a 2 v 2 skirmishes. However, mid lane fortunes would turn as Pawn output a weak performance on the Le Blanc as he was solo killed early on despite the early lead afforded to him by his jungler.
Pawn continued to get constantly picked and caught throughout the game as Samsung pulled further and further ahead with Haru was relentless in orchestrating dives and aggressive plays that Ambition’s control style had not offered Samsung. 6-2-7, and 76% of his team’s kills, Haru’s Rengar ran riot throughout the Kt line-up. An honourable mention goes to Ruler, the unsung hero of the game, as he constantly avoided Kt’s attempts to pick him off often turning the ganks around to create a pick on the Kt roster. Samsung force the decisive game 3!
Game 3
Game 3 was neck and neck until a turn around on a bot lane dive saw SSG pick up a small gold lead that would turn skirmishes into victory after victory. The game looked to be set for a clean close from Samsung as they slowly began to balloon their gold lead. However, a twenty three minute baron call from Samsung would see Score once again pull off another daring heist, stealing the baron from under the very noses of SSG and propelling Kt back into the game.
What would follow was team fighting of the highest calibre. Both teams fought to a standstill all across the map, with neither team able to get a significant advantage in fights from the ruins of the top outer tower to skirmishes by the midlane. However, the game would be once again in SSG’s hands as they deny score the baron steal and began the siege of the Kt base. The base looked to be held until Pawn, in a shocking use of his ult, solo kills himself as he teleports alone into 5 members of SSG and gets absolutely deleted. SSG steam roll the rest of the Kt lineup and pick up their second nexus of the night.
Samsung join Skt in shaking off their curses in a 2-1 win that puts them one match win away from second place. One must wonder what happened to the Kt Rolster that duelled Skt to such dizzying heights as they really can’t rely on Score stealing Baron after Baron to keep themselves in games.
This week’s MVP:
Bang. Always the solid rock of Skt, another set of stellar performances from Bang saw Skt go 4-1 in the week. However, what edged him out over Faker, who had an excellent showing on both ends of the midlane spectrum with Zilean and Talon, or Haru, who was instrumental in SSG’s win over Kt was that not only was Bang constantly winning lane and outputting monstrous amounts of damage in team fights but he, once again, changed the meta. Much like his Ninja Tabi Ezreal of last week, Bang’s early purchase of the sheen over tear on Ezreal changed the face of bot lane around the world as all other ADC’s ocne again sought to emulate the man at the top of his role. The earlier power spike offered by the Sheen allowed Ezreal to go toe to toe with Adcs such as Ashe whom would have had the advantage in push and kill pressure otherwise. With the incoming buffs to BOTRK, teams must be quaking in their boots as the spectre of the Skt’s dreaded Jugger-Bang comp looms ever closer.
In other news
Longzhu ROX
Despite a shaky game 1 and 2, LZ get it together in game three as Fly’s Taliah was once again the edge meta saviour that LZ needed to close out a 20 minute victory.
Elsewhere on the Rift
It was business as usual in the LCK as teams churned out results that were much as expected. With the addition of breaking their curses, Skt and SSG also claimed 2-0 wins over BBQ and KDM respectively. Kt add a victory over Jin Air though it took them three games to do so, a worrying fact. Longzhu and MVP continue to soar with back to back match wins Afreeca seem to have made a return to their form at the start of the split, that is to say, a step backwards in improvement. They were dismal in their loss to the ROX Tigers as ‘Our Mickey’ bossed them around the map all throughout their 2-0 victory.
Results this week:
Tuesday
Longzhu Gaming 2 – 1 Bbq Olivers
Jin Air GreenWings 1 – 2 Kt Rolster
Wednesday
SK telecom T1 2 – 1 Afreeca Freecs
Kongdoo Monster 0 – 2 MVP
Thursday
Longzhu Gaming 2 – 1 ROX Tigers
Samsung Galaxy 2 –1 Kt Rolster
Saturday
MVP 2 – 1 Jin Air GreenWings
Bbq Olivers 0 – 2 SK telecom T1
Sunday
Kongdoo Monster 0 – 2 Samsung Galaxy
ROX Tigers 2 – 0 Afreeca Freecs
