The Korea Regional Qualifier is a King of the Hill tournament that pits the best-of-the-rest from Korea against each other with the hope of reaching the World Championship. Teams seeded 3rd through 6th fight from the bottom up, in best of 5 matches, until they are either eliminated or reach the top. I will be previewing each team in the days leading up to the event, which starts with the 2nd place tiebreaker between SKT T1 K and Samsung White. Today we will look at the Najin White Shield, the fifth seed.

Najin White Shield was the runner-up in Champions Spring 2014, the first (and to date only) time they have ever ended a Champions season higher than fourth place. In Champions Summer, cracks began to show. Their play remained solid, but not in a “we almost won Champions” kind of way. Avoiding a teamkill with their sister team, Black Sword, both Najin teams left groups, White Shield with a score of 0-3-0 (W-T-L). That’s right, the runner-up from Spring never even won a single groups series the next season.

The Roster:

Top- Save

Jungle- Watch

Mid- Ggoong

AD Carry- Zefa

Support- Gorrila

The roster, on paper, looks very solid. Far from star-studded, but at the same time there’s no true weak link on the team. And indeed, when White Shield is on point, none of the players seem to be having problems. But it must be noted that White Shield dropped games to Black Sword, Jin Air Falcons, and the KT Bullets in groups, not to mention their 2-3 loss to the eventual winners of Summer, KT Arrows. When White Shield isn’t on point, simply put, they get walked on. KT Bullets trounced them 14-2 in kills in their victory (the next game NWS turned the tables and ended it 16-5). It does show that they at least die together, a sign that they play together. One would just hope they play together WITHOUT dying together.

Expected Results:

Najin White Shield is, by all rights, expected to win the first match against KT Rolster Bullets. The Bullets are fresh from essentially reforming after dropping Ryu and Mafa only three weeks ago, and with one low-experience player and one new face in the jungle and support roles (respectively), one can’t expect the Bullets to inspire much awe. It likely won’t be a free win, but as long as NWS can properly punish those weak points, it should be made much simpler. I would call a 3-0 for NWS, maybe a 3-1 if they need to warm up or if the newbies can keep up with the play.

The complex part is after that match. Assuming NWS brings down KT Bullets, they fight the KT Arrows. The Arrows being the team that not only defeated NWS 3-2 in the Quarterfinals, but they also happened to take the win in the Finals. It simply wouldn’t be correct to give a win to NWS here. KT Arrows are beginning to look much more consistent, and it’s less of a very-high, very-low and more of a very-high, still-pretty-good type of inconsistency. I’d be looking for a 3-1 victory for KT Arrows, but don’t be surprised if it ends up going to game 5, as that seems to be KTA’s thing.