The new season of League of Legends opens around the world with new rules and new teams, but one overriding constant; the Koreans are still the best in the world. Certainly Europe and North America have improved and the decision of the Chinese to focus on local talent will bear watching. However in the short term all that has potentially done is to increase the competitiveness in the Korean League.
KT Super Team meeting expectations
In the offseason KT Rolster built a new roster around star Jungler Score and the early results are almost unanimously positive. With a 4-0 series record and 8-1 match record overall, dropping only a single game to Afreeca, KT has removed any doubts about possible early season woes.
Arguably blessed with a Top 5 player in the world at every position, although PawN in mid-lane is debatable, KT combines incredible mechanical skill with a wealth of experience, allowing them to outplay their opponents in a myriad of ways. Indeed PawN is the only question mark for KT going forward. With his history of back injuries and no reserve mid-laner, PawN will need to play in every single game that KT play. As such the more series sweeps the better as KT look to preserve their mid-laner.
SKT still the cream of the crop
SK Telecom T1 coming off their third World Championship title in four years entered the 2017 LCK Spring Split with many unsure about their off-season top-lane acquisition. SKT lost top-laner Duke to Invictus Gaming and replaced him with Huni, who was best known for his time on the European team Fnatic and the North American squad Immortals.
There were many questioning the addition of Huni to the roster and with good reason. Huni has been a player with a reputation for being incredibly stubborn in previous rosters, essentially refusing to play Tank champions, which just happen to be a majority of the current Top lane champions used in competitive play. Second, and arguably equally as important, Huni has never seen prolonged success without Star Jungler Reignover by his side.
Reignover played with Huni at both Fnatic and Immortals, and with Reignover consistently playing to Huni’s side of the map, many wondered how he would fare in SKT. Surprisingly Huni has completely silenced his doubters, playing almost exclusively Tanks and dominating the competition thus far. The true test, however, for Huni and crew will come when they square off against fellow top team KT Rolster in the coming weeks.
Samsung Galaxy builds off strong World Championship
Samsung Galaxy impressed with a second place finish at the 2016 World Championship and now find themselves sitting with a 3-1 series record after four weeks of play. While maintaining their entire roster from last year, the addition of former CJ Entus Jungler Haru is having a profound impact on Samsung’s ability to win games, particularly on the blue side [that picks and bans first]. Ambition, the previous starting Jungler for Samsung, now plays on the red side (or the team that has last pick), while Haru is playing on the blue.
The formula is working well for Haru, who is demonstrating a consistent play maker ability since being given the opportunity. Conversely, Ambition is struggling so far this season, constantly looking out of place even surrounded by teammates that he has played with for an entire year. If Samsung are to compete with the SKT and KT’s of the world, they will need Ambition to step it up and play to the calibre he showed last year during the World Championships.
Afreeca off to a slow start
Another team with high expectations entering the 2017 season was Afreeca Freecs, who also built a super team. While not the same level of talent as KT, many observers expected Afreeca to easily be the third best team in the league. However their 2017 campaign has been an up and down affair so far and the team is just 1-3 in series play. That being said Afreeca are also the only team to take a game off of KT Rolster, showing that when everything clicks this team can beat any team in the world. Consistency will be the key for Afreeca and they can become a serious challenger if they can solve that issue.
