Almost done with the round robin, on the tail end of week 11 we have two rosters that are battling it out for the coveted second place finish in the regular season. KT Rolster comes into this set on a very nice streak of sets, remaining undefeated in the second half sans their lone set loss to SK Telecom where they even took the first match and ended their very long winning streak. On the other side are the KOO Tigers. The KOO Tigers were on a very similar run of success until they faced SK Telecom and promptly got their skull caved in. Since then their play has looked shaky and they haven’t looked like a very confident top team in Korea. Either way, both of these teams are fighting for second place and it should be the best set of the week in Korea. The standings are drawing a little clearer by the day, but final playoff placements really will come down to the final week of play. Should be an exciting playoff gauntlet with multiple teams showing capabilities to beat each other.

KT Rolster enters this match with the same set record at their KOO Tiger counterparts at 10-5. The difference puts KT below the Tigers in fourth place at 22-14 in overall matches. The story of KT is how they have absolutely come alive with the acquisition of Piccaboo. Since picking up the star Support after he left SK Telecom, KT has gone 11-4 in overall matches, 5-1 in total sets. He has been a very strong catalyst for this roster and a large reason for their success. After tonight’s match they will end their split against Incredible Miracle and Anarchy. With a win here, they would set themselves in prime position for a second place regular season finish.

“We have the most important match against the KOO Tigers next week. It’s important that we win every match, but we will be working very hard in preparation because defeating the KOO Tigers is especially important. We will work on champion pools as well as various strategies to win no matter what and produce a good result.” – Piccaboo

The KOO Tigers come into this match still trying to figure out where exactly they stand in Korea. At 10-5 in total sets and 23-12 in overall matches, they stand in third place currently. After a massive win streak in the second half of the first round robin, they faced off against SK Telecom and got dismantled. Bouncing back with a solid sweep of Anarchy, they squared off against Najin e-mFire and promptly lost 2-1, getting crushed all around the map in the final two matches. This set is huge for KOO as they are still fighting for favorable playoff gauntlet positioning. They are also the only one of the current 10 set win teams to have a remaining apparent test left. Next weeks match up against the Jin Air Green Wings will be another large set for both squads. With a set win or loss here, it can make or break the difference between only playing one best of five leading to the finals or playing a three best of five marathon.

“These are important times for us. We’re going to work a little bit harder towards qualifying for the World Championship. Fighting!” – Smeb

“We have about four matches left in the tournament. We’ll make sure we win them since they are important matches with the World Championship on the line.” – Kuro

Head to Head Matchup

While both of these rosters are very top lane focused in their own different ways, I’ve noticed both of their best success recently has come whenever their respective mid laners show up and perform at an unexpected level. Both Nagne and Kuro aren’t highly regarded by the community, but both have been integral to the success of their team’s this split. Both players typically enjoy a more passive mid lane style, garnering little assistance from their team in the way of gank pressure. They show off large, diverse champ pools to fit almost every situation and are mostly billed as the “glue” that makes the team comp stick together, rarely being placed in a position as a main carry. Don’t expect many fireworks out of these two in laning phase, but when team fights kick off keep an eye on both as they’ve shown to excel in that phase of the game.

Here they are by the numbers.

Nagne

Kills: 122

Deaths: 57

Assists: 155

K+A/D: 4.9

Kill Participation: 68.5%

Death Percentage: 21.6%

CS Differential at 10: +2.8

Damage Percentage: 29.8%

Gold Percentage: 26.0%

Earned Gold Per Minute: 267.7

Unique Champion Wins: 7

Games Played: 28

Kuro

Kills: 167

Deaths: 59

Assists: 210

K+A/D: 6.4

Kill Participation: 74.2%

Death Percentage: 13.5%

CS Differential at 10: -4.1

Damage Percentage: 28.4%

Gold Percentage: 25.4%

Earned Gold Per Minute: 269.1

Unique Champion Wins: 8

Games Played: 34

KT Rolster

Coached by Lee Ji-Hoon

TOP: Kim “ssumday” Chan-ho (김찬호)

Kim “ssumday” Chan-ho (김찬호) JUNGLE: Go “Score” Dong-bin (고동빈)

Go “Score” Dong-bin (고동빈) JUNGLE: Kim “Ares” Min-kwon (김민권)

Kim “Ares” Min-kwon (김민권) MID: Kim “Nagne” Sang-moon (김상문)

Kim “Nagne” Sang-moon (김상문) MID: Lee “Edge” Ho-sung (이호성)

Lee “Edge” Ho-sung (이호성) ADC: No “Arrow” Dong-hyeon (노동현)

No “Arrow” Dong-hyeon (노동현) SUPPORT: Lee “Piccaboo” Jong-Beom (이종범)

Lee “Piccaboo” Jong-Beom (이종범) SUPPORT: Jung “Fixer” Jae-woo (정재우)

The original star of this roster, Ssumday has had an incredible split thus far. Being the true main carry of this roster throughout the year due to Arrow and Nagne’s inconsistencies, he has stepped up to the plate and helped push KT over teams that seem to flounder, such as Jin Air and Najin. Gaining more attention and resources than any other top laner that isn’t Marin, Ssumday has had a lot on his shoulders this split. He himself was marred with inconsistencies prior to this year, but with the meta being very top-centric and KT playing it smartly, he has shone bright for the first time in his career and has been placed into a role that he looks comfortable in. Lately KT has prioritized getting Ssumday on a tanky top laner like Shen or Maokai and letting him make high impact global ult and homeguard teleport plays around the map. His teleport use is some of the best you’ll see in the entire world and as such his Shen play has been fantastic. Outside of those two, he’s really shown off a diverse pool of champs through the split.

The former KT Bullets ADC, Score moved to the jungle this year for his third career role swap, yet again finding another comfortable home of a position. During the Spring split, he was very hot and cold in his play. One of the few fairly aggressive junglers left in Korea, new to the role he was often punished for it by more experienced junglers. He has since refined his play and found strong synergy with new support Piccaboo. Their duo roaming in the early-mid game has won this team a handful of games by snowballing hard. Their very aggressive style together has punished certain junglers like Ambition and Watch by putting them on their back foot early and often. Not typically stepping outside of the jungle meta, Score plays all of the main meta junglers to a solid degree. Rek’Sai has been his most played jungler by far, mostly due to Fixer, Piccaboo, and Ssumday drawing more priority in the ban phase from other teams.

As noted in the head to head match up, Nagne is a fairly average mid laner with a solid amount of depth to his champ pool. This entire season he’s rarely been an impressive player, but lately he has been set up really well by Piccaboo, reminiscent of how Piccaboo would set up Coco when they played together well over a year ago on Xenics Storm. Normally the mid lane is just a farm fest, but due to the supports unique style these tiny advantages are now appearing for Nagne that you would otherwise never see from him. Much like Score, he very often gets whatever pick he wants in the pick phase due to having low priority in the ban phase for other teams. Picking up Cassiopeia, Azir, and Viktor to great success, he’s been a solid mid for KT this split.

The bot lane for KT has been one of growth over this season. Starting off with Hachani at support, Arrow continued to struggle. Dropping Hachani for good and moving into Fixer, Arrow steadily improved to a solid state. With Piccaboo available they leaped at the opportunity to grab him and now they have one of the strongest, most impactful bot lanes in Korea. It has been stated repeatedly, but Arrow’s laning was notoriously poor through the year prior with Hachani. Working up through Fixer and into Piccaboo, the upgrades at support have done him wonders, shoring up his biggest weakness. Always a strong team fighter, it was always a question of if he could get to that point. If he could just get out of lane. Well, now he can on a consistent basis. The only question mark I still have with Arrow is his champ pool is rather narrow for a marksman. His Sivir and Kog’Maw play has been phenomenally, following historical trends. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much in the way of other champs. His Corki play has been extremely poor his entire career and hasn’t shown up well on Tristana, even avoiding playing her last Summer when she was at her peak. If he’s on Sivir or Kog’Maw, there’s little doubt he’ll show up and perform. His partner in lane is one I’ve talked quite a bit about already, Piccaboo. Former Samsung and SK Telecom member, he has been an absolute terror for teams since joining KT. Fixer was a solid support, but Piccaboo just pushes this team into new heights. Lane presence is an upgrade, his synergy with Score is an upgrade, and his unique roaming style carries the KT early game. He has shown up strong on every support you can think of and has a Thresh that is feared by everyone. The pressure this one play has put on teams, not just in-game, but in draft is immense. I love Piccaboo.

KOO TIGERS

Coached by Jeong “NoFe” No-chul

TOP: Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho (송경호)

Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho (송경호) JUNGLE: Lee “Hojin” Ho-Jin (이호진)

Lee “Hojin” Ho-Jin (이호진) JUNGLE: Kim “Wisdom” Tae-wan (김태완)

Kim “Wisdom” Tae-wan (김태완) MID: Lee “KurO” Seo-haeng (이서행)

Lee “KurO” Seo-haeng (이서행) ADC: Kim “Pray” Jong-in (김종인)

Kim “Pray” Jong-in (김종인) SUPPORT: Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon (강범현)

One of the stars of this team and probably the most consistent, Smeb has performed really well this entire split. Recently, even with the entire team-wide woes, he’s still been a top three player at his position in the region. Despite getting clocked by SK Telecom, he really played better than Marin both matches with some brilliant teleport plays that gave KOO every breath of life they had. This team plays around him really well and due to the two junglers on the team, Hojin and Wisdom, both being very one-dimensional in their pathing, Smeb gains a lot of attention. Like Ssumday he’s shown a broad depth of champions that he can play at a very high level. Despite showing a deep champ pool through the split, his past twelve games he’s played either Rumble or Maokai in every one of them. Only those two. He’s been really strong on those two, but I feel it’s kind of hamstringing KOO overall. They’re already a very one note team so when the depth to their team falls off in the form of champ pools going away, it just doesn’t look good to me.

The largest hole in this team sits in the jungle. Hojin and Wisdom have both split time evenly since Wisdom’s acquisition from Incredible Miracle. Hojin as a jungler is very one-dimensional, being exceptionally top lane focused. Very predictable and by the books type jungler. On the whole he has been pretty solid this split, but he’s a type of player that doesn’t have the ceiling needed to seriously compete with top level players. Wisdom, on the other hand, is a bit more erratic in his jungle style and far less stable. When things go bad for Wisdom, he will lose you the game on his own, but the caveat to that is his upside is much higher than Hojin. When things go well for Wisdom, he has the capability to carry a game that Hojin does not. These two also play different roles within the team in terms of their priority. Hojin falling into a more supportive role, bringing in the least gold of any starting jungler. Wisdom plays more of a carry, balanced role from the jungle, taking in the fourth most gold of all starting junglers. Both of these junglers, any way you spin it, are unstable and are the biggest weakness on this roster. They both share similar junglers, both prioritizing Evelynn and Gragas heavily. I don’t think highly of either jungler and feel replacement is necessary for KOO to hit another level of play.

The second fairly stable member of this team is Kuro. This split he’s been one of their top performers despite being very independent from the team in terms of how many resources he eats up. In game you’ll rarely see him go aggressive in lane and you’ll almost never see persistent jungle and support pressure in his lane. Much like Nagne, as stated in the head to head above, he’s very much a glue player for KOO. Sometimes, like in their series against Najin where he played Yasuo, he’ll be put into a main carry position, but typically he’s relegated into a secondary carry position behind Pray and Smeb. Very wide champ pool, he’s a player that has competed at a pretty high level across every meta for well over two years. His best pick by far is Viktor. He brought this pick into the meta back in Spring and has been absolutely disgusting on it, 13-0 on the champ all time. KOO’s initial burst of success this split came from when he was elevated into a more carry oriented role. He has played eight different champions in his past eight matches.

The bot lane for KOO, Pray and Gorilla, was a huge source of success back in Spring. Pray looked renewed and they played around the bot lane really well. Really since the start of the split, Pray has taking a dip in his play and they haven’t played around the bot lane at all. Fairly large problem with Pray, similarly to Arrow, is his champ pool. Sivir and Corki are huge pluses for Pray, but outside of that he just hasn’t shown much this split. His Kog’Maw has historically been excellent, including last split, but we haven’t seen too much of it this split. His bot lane partner is Gorilla, one of the best supports in Korea. Really versatile player, transitioning seamlessly from more supportive mage type champs into the tankier engage champs you see now. Recently he has picked up Braum and has had some really impressive showings on him. This duo lane has dropped off a bit and I really do believe it’s because of the meta shifting very far away from ADC dominant teams. With marksmen champs losing effectiveness through all phases of the game, it hurts one of the players that is regarded as a “main carry” on this team. I also feel Gorilla, despite being one of the best supports overall, just isn’t having the same effectiveness right now in terms of play making that other top supports like Piccaboo and Wolf are having. More mid focus by Gorilla in terms of his roaming potential would be a solution as that has been a huge source of success with both SK Telecom, CJ Entus, and KT Rolster. KOO is the only top four team that really leaves their mid laner on an island now.

PREDICTION

Due to how KOO has looked in the past week or so, I have to side with KT in this match up, 2-1. Piccaboo has given this team new life and they look like a really strong unit together. I like a lot of the players on KOO and I do hope they can turn it around for a solid Worlds showing, but right now it’s not looking pretty. What got them to the top in Spring just isn’t cutting it anymore. Smeb and Kuro are the only consistent performing players at the moment. Said it months ago, but if they can’t figure out their jungle situation they will totally lost on the international stage. Sad because I really believe players like Kuro, Smeb, and Gorilla are able to compete with the best.

CREDITS

https://www.twitter.com/bnununu – Offers great translations for Korean content, go give him a follow.

http://www.oracleselixir.com/ – Visit this site for all stats regarding recent splits across all major regions sans China.

http://lol.esportspedia.com/ – Solid up to date stats, team, and tourney tracking.

http://lol.inven.co.kr/ – More data for Korean teams and players.