This article is part of our LoL Recap series.
KT Rolster vs. MVP
KT Rolster swept MVP 3-0 in a fairly one-sided first round playoff matchup in Seoul, South Korea on Tuesday in League of Legends Champions Korea.
MVP started out well enough in Game 1, with jungler Kim "Beyond" Kyu-seok's Elise getting a couple early kills to push his team to an early lead. Despite MVP getting the first tower, KT slowly inched its way back into the game by taking a couple of towers of its own and finding picks across the map. After getting the lead around 17 minutes, KT then won a 2-for-0 teamfight at the 21-minute mark that led to an uncontested Baron. The buff allowed KT to keep snowballing its massive lead, while breaking into MVP's base. Once inside the base, MVP was powerless to stop KT from picking up the 29-minute Game 1 win.
Game 2 started off much like the first, with MVP looking strong early on before falling apart as the game progressed. Part of the early game pressure MVP put out came from the surprise Blitzcrank pick of support Jeong "Max" Jong-bin. Even with the early advantage from this bottom lane, KT still bounced back by once again picking up consistent kills across the map. Just after KT got back to even in gold, MVP tried to wrestle control of the game back with a 3-for-1, but it was short lived as KT managed a 3-for-1 teamfight win of its own. Another teamfight victory, this time a 3-for-0 at the 28-minute mark, gave KT an uncontested Baron. After pushing into the base with the Baron buff, KT almost let things slip away when MVP came close to winning a late teamfight, but the three Infernal Drakes gave it the opportunity to outlast MVP in the fight and gain enough advantages to lock up the win in 36 minutes.
Game 3 looked like MVP's first real chance to finally pick up a win in this series. While KT started off with a 1,000-gold lead at six minutes, MVP controlled the early Infernal Drakes, which paid off in the mid game. It was a 3-for-0 at the 23-minute mark that started the change and allowed MVP to get the first Baron. Picking up two more kills to jump out to a 2,000-gold lead, MVP looked to be in complete control going into the late game. Not ready to throw in the towel, KT went for a decisive Baron at the 31-minute mark that turned the game around. This Baron helped it take back the gold lead and start setting things up for the final push, while the second Baron it picked up gave it the final piece needed to clean up MVP's base once and for all to lock up the series sweep.
KT Rolster's big win moves it into the next round of the playoffs against Samsung Galaxy this Saturday at 4 a.m. ET.
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Samsung vs. KT Rolster
While some predicted Samsung Galaxy to walk away victorious after Saturday's series, KT Rolster flipped that idea on its head with a resounding 3-0 sweep in the second round of the League of Legends Champions Korea playoffs in Seoul, South Korea.
KT had a great start to the series, picking up first tower gold in the bottom lane and first blood in the top lane before 12 minutes had passed. Capitalizing on its control of the map, KT collapsed onto Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in's Lulu for another kill a couple minutes later. From then on, things went south for Samsung in a hurry. First, Samsung got caught in its jungle and AD carry Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu's Caitlyn made them pay with a 3-for-1 skirmish win. A few minutes later, KT took another fight 3-for-0 before taking a free Baron at the 22-minute mark. With the buff in hand, KT pushed right through Samsung's defenses and picked up a 4-for-1 fight that opened up the map enough for the 25-minute Game 1 win.
Moving right along into Game 2, KT once again picked up first blood, this time going over to jungler Go "Score" Dong-bin's Elise just over three minutes in. After taking the first tower in the bottom lane a few minutes later, the teams started trading kills back and forth. KT always managed to stay ahead, though, leading to an almost 5,000-gold lead by 20 minutes. Samsung tried to make its way back into the game with a 2-for-1 in the top lane river at 21 minutes, but then KT responded back with a resounding 5-for-1 ace at 23 minutes that gave way to a Baron for KT. Led by Score's 8/3/7 KDA (kills/deaths/assists), KT took another clean ace in Samsung's base a few minutes later to pick up a 30-minute win.
Smelling blood in the water, KT gave Deft Jinx in Game 3, a champion that Deft holds an over 90 percent win rate on throughout his career. After a slow laning phase, Score finally secured first blood at the 12-minute mark with his Lee Sin. Over the next major portion of the game, KT took a few more kills, but never managed to fully pull away for quite some time. Samsung then secured a 3-for-0 at 26 minutes and proceeded to go for a fateful Baron. Despite having a numbers advantage, it lost the fight to a ridiculous pop-off from Deft, who picked up a triple kill in the four-kill fight that he and mid laner Heo "PawN" Won-seok's Malzahar picked up to flip the game on its head. From then on, KT won even more teamfights to completely stomp out Samsung's light and secure the 3-0 series sweep.
With the win, KT now moves on to the finals where it will take on SK Telecom T1 in another edition of the Telecom Wars next Saturday at 4 a.m. ET.
