The threat of SK Telecom T1’s indefinite supremacy looms as a convenient excuse to dismiss the rest of the League of Legends story as it unfolds in the coming years. In some ways, it hasn’t been told well. Rather than ask when SKT will fall, many have assumed they’ve already won this season and each season to come. It’s made heavier by the weight of SKT’s history, a history that predates LoL.

But though SKT have doggedly remained the best team in the world for at least the past two years, they have stumbled. Challengers have emerged; Lee “Faker” Sanghyeok has faced would-be rivals, and SKT have lost best-of-fives.

This year, KT Rolster pulled four of those challengers together to complement the last man who dared to assume Faker’s mantle and failed. Song “Smeb” Kyungho, perhaps to a heavy-handed or even forced extent, was pitted as Faker’s rival throughout 2016, but he stands out as the only member of KT Rolster’s current roster to have never defeated SKT in a best-of-five.

KT Rolster itself was the last team to topple SKT in a best-of-five, but only Go “Score” Dongbin, the team’s core player and a member since October 2012, remains. Score’s creative pathing proved instrumental in KT’s grueling five game set victory. Despite ultimately eliminating SKT from playoffs, however, KT could not keep it together for Worlds, and were supplanted by Samsung Galaxy.

Prior to KT’s defeat of SKT, their last loss was at the hands of EDward Gaming at the Mid-Season Invitational, with EDG becoming the only non-Korean team to have overcome Faker’s SKT. Three members hailed from mainland China, but both Kim “Deft” Hyukkyu and Heo “pawN” Wonseok were also part of the team.

Deft drew key bans on Jinx and positioned well to perform better as his team’s primary carry. Though pawN struggled against Faker in lane, his ability to sustain and prevent Faker from snowballing in Game 5 ran counter to pawN’s more reckless history. It opened the map for the rest of EDG to choke out SKT.

But pawN has an even longer history of beating Faker in a best-of-five, with the most notches in his belt of any member of KT. Often referred to as Faker’s kryptonite, this narrative has been largely overblown, but he has demonstrated a lack of predictability and stability in lane that occasionally mirrors Faker’s. One might liken him to ROX’s Son “Mickey” Youngmin, as his strengths are in aggressive play and positioning far forward in lane, but this playstyle that can easily backfire.

Before EDward Gaming, pawN defeated SK Telecom T1 K as a member of Samsung Galaxy Ozone and Samsung Galaxy White. Cho “Mata” Sehyeong, KT Rolster’s support, served as the pilot of the ship when Ozone and White defeated SKT T1 K in back-to-back Champions playoffs, and then one final time in a humiliating 3-0 tiebreaker to qualify for the World Championship.

Samsung White’s playstyle was nearly everything SK Telecom’s isn’t. With an incredibly fast pace that relied upon attaining Teleport advantage with jungle pressure and then looking to trade aggressively in the 2v2, White snowballed their leads by playing to deep vision. Their overenthusiasm cost them in teamfights in the mid and late game when White did manage to lose, particularly to sister team Samsung Blue.

It’s almost as if KT Rolster tried to draw from the wisdom of every team that succeeded in felling SK Telecom T1 in the all-important best-of-five and gathered it around Smeb for a final push. The two upcoming best-of-threes in the Telecom War will give us our first taste. If you’ve followed the story so far, it feels like a last gasp. At least that’s how it may well be remembered.

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One common theme for all of KT’s laners is how they position in lane. Often seeking to pressure turrets early, KT value being able to push out the wave and open the jungle. This is an intelligent but risky approach to building a team around a jungler like Score, who developed fantastically since his role swap into one of the most efficient junglers in the history of the game.

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