It's typical of SKT to save their best until it matters and today they demolished Samsung Galaxy in the LCK playoffs.
Although we have only just hit the end of the regular split here in Europe, Korea is well underway with its playoffs. After a relatively comfortable 2-0 win over Afreeca Freecs in round one, SK Telecom faced Samsung Galaxy in round two for a shot at qualifying for Worlds next month.
Game one was the Faker show. A mistake from Crown early on - dying with both summoners available - granted Lucian first blood. It may seem flippant to say that was game over, but Faker’s Lucian became an unstoppable monster, ending the game 8/1/2. Only three kills were left for his teammates, in a 33 minute stomping. SKT were up seven turrets to one and 11k gold by the time the enemy nexus fell.
Samsung unsurprisingly opted to ban Lucian in game two and Faker ended up on Lucian against Crown’s Orianna. A busy early game somehow resulted in no kills, despite active junglers and multiple skirmishes. Samsung struck first with a couple of tower kills around the 15 minute mark, opening up a small lead for themselves. SKT evened up the towers but eventually conceded first blood after Bang’s Kalista got caught out. Peanut doubled down on the mistakes by handing over a second kill and a failed double-TP play from SKT ended up gifting the baron to Samsung. Then things got weird. SKT ran down middle lane, taking two towers and an inhibitor, trading it for more or less the same, almost completely nullifying the baron advantage.
Just moments later, Samsung made a huge mistake of their own, splitting up on the map and granting SKT multiple kills and a baron. Samsung continued to press and SKT continued to push them back. Team fight after team fight went SKT’s way, thanks to their tanky frontline, until they eventually pushed into Samsung’s base and ended the game.
On the verge of defeat, Samsung brought in Stitch and Wraith for game three. Stitch certainly made an impact, but for all the wrong reasons, diving under the enemy turret on Tristana to give away first blood. He perfectly mirrored Bang’s 3/0 Kalista by going 0/3 in the opening 20 minutes. The first team fight also went SKT’s way and suddenly the gold lead was almost 6k in their favour. Unlike Samsung in game, SKT were in no mood to let their opponents back into game three. They took a free baron on the half hour mark and, four uncontested kills later, they had the nexus too.
