This article is part of our LoL Previews series.
This next weekend will bring us a match fit for a World final, and one that we did in fact see in last year's finals: ROX Tigers vs. SKT T1. That finals never seemed to live up to the hype, as the Tigers lost after just three games.
2016 is a new year, however, and the fortunes of both teams have changed considerably. Bae "Bengi" Seong-ung and Jang "Marin" Gyeong-Hwan both left SKT T1, breaking up the two-time world championship squad. In their wake, new blood formed in Kang "Blank" Sun-gu and Lee "Duke" Ho-Seong. On the other side, the Tigers lost Lee "Hojin" Ho-Jin to retirement and replaced him with the young and impetuous Yoon "Peanut" Wang-ho -- a substitution that many consider the most impactful recent roster change in the Korean scene.
As such, the two teams that will take the stage against each other are far different than those that met a year ago. SKT T1 especially have had recent results that are far beneath their normal standards, such as failing to make it to the LCK Finals for the first time in recent memory, falling instead to KT Rolster in the semifinals. Instead, the ROX Tigers emerged as the LCK champions for the first time in their history and, more importantly, surpassed SKT T1 in the standings for the first time in their history.
What's On the Line
Make no mistake, much more than a finals berth is at stake in this match, and for many this match will likely prove more important than the final themselves. For the Tigers, this is THE opportunity to prove that they are finally a match for SKT T1 pound for pound. While they may have obliterated KT Rolster to earn the right to be called LCK champions, they did so without meeting SKT T1 once, a fact which must cheapen the victory in their eyes. Even while they were dominating the regular season, SKT T1 proved an insurmountable obstacle -- nearly all of their regular season losses were to the three-time LCK Champions, while SKT T1 themselves tended to lose against weaker teams.
For SKT T1, losing this match would be the ending of a dynasty. SKT T1 has utterly dominated the LCK ever since the fall of Samsung, and while the Tigers have always been snapping at their heels, they've never been a serious challenge when push came to shove. Losing this match would prove that not only is SKT T1 beatable by the rank and file of the LCK, they can't even stand up to the team they've routinely demolished throughout their one-sided rivalry. To date, ROX have never defeated SKT T1 in full series, and only rarely take games. If their unexpected loss to KT Rolster showed that cracks were beginning to form in SKT's hegemony, losing this weekend to the Tigers would open the door to a new era in Korean League of Legends -- a prospect that has many fans of currently overshadowed teams like KT Rolster, Samsung, and the Tigers salivating.
How Does Each Team Stack Up?
Interestingly, both have shown similar play at Worlds thus far. Each relies on their solid rotations and excellent late game shotcalling to carry them to victory, but also punish mistakes ruthlessly. When either team gets a lead, they convert it into a victory, and neither team has yet to lose a game in which they held a gold lead in the first ten minutes.
That is where the first major point of divergence lies, as while SKT T1 have established an early gold lead in nearly every game they've played -- with only the first and fourth game against Royal sticking out as a counterexample -- the ROX Tigers have some of the worst stats in the tournament when it comes to gold differentials. At 10 minutes, SKT T1 tend to be 1.2k ahead as a team, while the Tigers tend towards a mere 400 -- a number that was a staggering -3.6k at the end of Week 1. Numbers don't tell the whole story, however, as while the Tigers do have the lower number, it must be pointed out that SKT ended Week 1 with a similar number to what they have now, while ROX's performance during the elimination stages and Week 2 were dominant enough to bring the stat up an unheard of 4k gold. Put more simply, while SKT T1's performances have been largely flat -- with only a few crushing defeats to move the needle -- the Tigers have had rather wide variance across their games.
Nowhere was this more evident than during the Tiger's two games against tournament upstarts, Albus Nox Luna. During their first meeting the Tigers were utterly obliterated in the early game, and while they managed a extraordinarily impressive defense considering the 10k gold deficit they were in, they eventually succumbed to the LCL team's relentless split-pushing. Their second meeting could not have been more different: Peanut and Lee "Kuro" Seo-haeng took over the map from the word go, and all of Nox Luna felt the wrath of the awakened Tigers, resulting in one of the most laughably one-sided series of the tournament.
Similarly, SKT T1 have shown similar cracks. The Flash Wolves successfully exploited Blank's tendency to cover up for Duke by endlessly ganking Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, causing him to feed so badly that Huang "Maple" Yi-Tang and Hung "Karsa" Hau-Hsuan practically won the game for the Flash Wolves themselves. Similarly, Liu "mlxg" Shi-yu took advantage of Bengi's tendency to protect Faker at all costs by instead ripping the side lanes apart, particularly the vulnerable Bang and Wolf who were on the worst end of a heavily pressure-focused lane from Royal.
The uniting thread is the early game: both teams love to strangle their opponents in the mid game with their superior decision making as well as, frankly, their superior individual play. Both need to avoid falling behind early in order to accomplish that, and while the Tigers certainly have the more exceptional examples of what can happen when they fall behind early, SKT have also had games that snowballed totally out of control early on -- they just also happen to have a Viktor in those games to stem the bleeding.
Players to Watch
Blank and Peanut. Both lead their respective roles in related, yet subtly different statistics. Of the remaining junglers, Blank has the highest kill participation rate before 15 minutes, sporting an 83 percent, while Peanut scores beneath him on that metric with a 64 percent but had an overall higher KDA pre-15 with a 3.0 score to Blank's 2.5. This is largely a function of both the team's styles and the champions they tend to use. Peanut played almost solely Elise heading into the elimination stages, a champion that rewarded him with an awesome number of kills, but who's single target nature meant that he wasn't receiving as many assists in teamfights as the Olaf that Blank has favored. Furthermore, the Tigers have more laning kills sans jungler interference than SKT T1, meaning that Peanut's gap in participation could well be interpreted as his teammates simply winning their lanes hard enough that he's not needed to secure kills -- an interpretation which makes the numbers seem more on his side.
What is certain is that both of there junglers are the playmakers for their teams in the early game, and both have had games that completely eclipse those of any other jungler present. While this series may well come down to five long, drawn out games that are eventually decided by daring calls or solid teamfighting, it's also extremely likely that some number of games will all but end prior to the 20 minute mark. Both Blank and Peanut are utterly dominant when they get off the ground, and while both teams strangle their opponents out once they obtain a decisive lead, the explosiveness with which ROX can end a game they've taken a lead in means that SKT T1 is unlikely to be able to stall a game out against them. SKT T1 for their part are more controlled and calculating, but that may well prove to be a weakness against a team that is no less strategically apt than SKT T1 themselves.
No matter the outcome, however, this is sure to be a celebrated match, and the potential outcomes are as varied as any semifinal match in recent memory. Win or lose, both teams have much to fight for and their fans are sure to have a lot to cheer for. Say what you will about either team, they sure put on a show when they meet, and this match is sure to excite just as much as their previous matches.
