The Chicago Theatre in the Windy City saw a confirmation of the Korean dominance in League of Legends this past week with all three Korean teams making it through to the semi-finals in New York. The overall standard of play was high and the quarter-final results set up a couple of fascinating encounters at Madison Square Garden.
The Rematch
The first semi-final features a rematch of the final from last year, with the runner-up ROX Tigers (then KOO Tigers) seeking vengeance against two time World Champions SK Telecom T1.
Both teams took down Chinese opponents in four games in the quarters, with SKT defeating Royal Never Give Up and ROX conquering EDward Gaming.
An upset-laden group stage shuffled the teams and the ROX vs. SKT clash ends up being the most anticipated match-up of the entire tournament, with the winner certainly becoming the favourite to win the competition. The key champion to keep an eye on is Zyra, who has been rising in popularity to the point that she was 100% picked or banned in every single quarter-final match.
For the ROX Tigers, Jungler Peanut, rather than best player in the world Top laner Smeb, shapes up as the potential deciding factor in winning or losing. Peanut turned in an epic performance in the quarter-finals and if ROX hope to move on to the final, he will have to put in a similar effort against SKT.
Peanut should be confident heading to Madison Square Garden, with his opposition in the enemy jungle no longer the best Jungler in the world, having got past ClearLove and EDG in the quarter-finals. Instead ROX will face the revolving jungle door of SKT in Blank and Bengi.
Conversely, once again late in a World Championship run, SK Telecom will look to Mid laner Faker to guide them to the finale. While ROX’s Mid laner KurO in comparison hasn’t been as poor as SKT’s jungle (whoever is playing at the time), the Mid lane is SKT’s greatest strength in contrast to ROX’s weakness. Look for the pick and ban to attempt to reduce the strength of each opposing team, with SKT focusing on Peanut’s champion pool and ROX attacking Faker’s. This is the clash of titans that many expected to be in the final, but it’s now or never for these Korean powerhouses.
Europe faces off against Korea
The second semi-final pits Korean third seed Samsung Galaxy against Europe’s second seed H2k. Both teams had a rather swift and simple quarter-final, with Samsung sweeping North America’s Cloud9, while H2k did likewise with International Wildcard Albus NoX Luna.
The quarter-finals for both of these teams showed an ability to deal with pocket pick bans, which could heavily influence the pick and ban strategies moving forward. Samsung’s Mid laner Crown had his pocket pick Viktor banned away in all three games by Cloud9, yet Samsung still swept the series.
Meanwhile H2k banned away Albus NoX Luna’s pocket Support Brand, aiding them in their convincing sweep. By all accounts Viktor will be banned in every game, and with each team knowing that, it causes an interesting pick and ban scenario for both teams as H2k will in essence only have two bans to play with.
Inside the game Samsung will focus their play around the individual prowess of Crown, while H2k will look to both the First Blood King Jankos and late game machine FORG1VEN.
Crown showed off his highlight reel skill against Cloud9, pulling out a kill 1v3 without dying and stunning the home crowd. If Crown can keep this consistency up through the five-game set with H2k, it’s hard to see the Europeans coming out on top.
For H2k, aggression is the secret to their success, with Jungler Jankos setting up the early game and then transitioning into keeping FORG1VEN alive in order to carry the team to victory.
It’s also key to note that H2k also bears the weight of being the only non-Korean team left in the tournament, most likely giving them a home crowd advantage. The winners then move on to the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the final as Korea look to make it four straight wins in the World Championship.
Image Credit: http://lol.gamepedia.com/2016_World_Championship
