Champions enters the second round robin of the season with a solid lineup matches. Najin e-mFire vs KT Rolster is the most notable to me as I see Najin making their patented late split run to Worlds while KT Rolster has had a bit of a hiccup recently in an otherwise solid split. Other notable matches this week include CJ Entus playing both the KOO Tigers and the Jin Air Green Wings this week, however, due to their poor performance recently and overall very vanilla play style I’m far less interested in their matches. This is also a rematch this past week where Najin soundly defeated KT in a 2-0 set. Hoping to see KT Rolster adapt and pin point the major weaknesses in Najin’s team.

Najin e-mFire enters this set after a mediocre week six, being taken down by the Jin Air Green Wings 2-0, my set of the week last week, while bouncing back afterwards to crush KT Rolster 2-0. Najin is in 4th place currently, 6-3 in sets and 13-8 in overall matches. Their three set losses have come at the hands of Anarchy, Jin Air Green Wings, and SK Telecom. One major trend with Najin e-mFire is that they have lived and died by the performance of their mid laner, Ggoong. When he performs, Najin wins in stunning fashion. When he fails to show up, Najin loses and it’s rarely close. Currently, it does appear Najin is a step ahead of KT Rolster, however, this match will be another strong test for Najin as they gear up for their patented Worlds qualifying run.

KT Rolster comes into this week off two rough 2-0 set losses to SK Telecom and Najin e-mFire. Here, they look to adapt and get revenge on Najin for the crushing defeat last week. KT Rolster is 5-4 in set wins and 11-10 in overall matches this split. Their four set losses this split have been against CJ Entus, KOO Tigers, SK Telecom, and Najin e-mFire. They had a rough week six facing off against two of the top three teams in Korea, Jin Air Green Wings and SK Telecom. This match will be important for them if they have hopes of competing in the gauntlet at the end of the season and will be a very nice gauge to see exactly where KT stands in Korea.

Najin e-mFire

Lee “Duke” Ho-seong (이호성)

Cho “watch” Jae-geol (조재걸)

Yoon “Peanut” Wang-ho (윤왕호)

Yu “Ggoong” Byeong-jun (유병준)

Park “TANK” Dan-won (박단원)

Oh “Ohq” Gyu-min (오규민)

Lee “Zefa” Jae-min (이재민)

Kim “Pure” Jin-sun (김진선)

Jang “Cain” Nu-ri (장누리)

Duke had a fairly good week individually despite the poor losses to the Green Wings. Put on Ryze both matches, Chaser completely dominated the map, showing everyone why he’s the best jungler in Korea, shutting him down easily both times. He bounced back extremely well with a phenomenal series against KT Rolster, playing Maokai and Rumble, combining for a 6-1-22 series KDA. This guy is one of the strongest laners in the world at his position, in Korea he’s second only to Marin in CS differential at 10 minutes. This stat really falls in line with Najin as a team, as they have secured first blood in 70% of their matches, second only to SK Telecom at 75%. Another interesting stat with Duke is that he has the least deaths of any starting top laner this split at 40, which is even more remarkable considering he died 10 total times in the Jin Air set. Watching Duke play, he knows every single limit and will punish you hard. He’s shown mastery of the big four top laners, Gnar, Maokai, Rumble, and Hecarim, while having a sneaky top lane Nautilus pick.

Being heavily outplayed and the leading cause of loss in the Jin Air set, Watch showed how far behind he is compared to the tops in Korea. This season he has performed fairly well individually and has preyed upon the younger talents in Korea. When facing off against more seasoned players in Lira, of Anarchy, and Chaser, of Jin Air, his play has been exposed. Lately he’s trended towards his signature Evelynn, Rek’Sai, and Lee Sin. I feel Watch is a victim of the Najin three main carry team dynamic. He pulls in the lowest amount of gold of any starting jungler at 16% while still favoring some of the more individual focused junglers that require a little more farm to be optimal. Regardless of that, he has performed admirably.

The main issue on Najin, Ggoong has started to show a little more variance in the champ pool. A very strong outing on Cassiopeia, along with good Viktor play, has helped remove a little of my doubts now that Leblanc and Zed are out of the meta. Team dynamic wise, I still feel he is the grime that keeps this Najin machine from working at peak capacity. He has pulled in the second most kills of any mid laner at 98, yet has the second lowest kill participation of any starting mid laner. This split he has played a lot of the more selfish, lane dominant carries such as Cassiopeia, Leblanc and Viktor yet is one of three starting mid laners to record an average CS deficit at the 10 minute mark. He is just an incredibly inefficient player nowadays and is the clear detriment to this team. In the past he’s show the inability to convert to a more support, secondary role. Now, we’re seeing him sap resources from both Duke and Watch and I feel it’s not the optimal team dynamic.

Ohq was the only player who truly showed up in both losses to Jin Air, playing both Tristana and Lucian. Lately he’s shown a lot of variety in his champ pool performing well on damn near everything. He’s the best player at his role in Korea. His in game play backs it up and the stats back it up. He has the second highest KDA in Korea at 6.6, only below Bang’s 7.0 KDA. His standard laning play is some of the strongest in the world despite him not just sticking to lane dominant champs. With a healthy dose of Sivir, Tristana, and Vayne, he’s been unable to get his hands on his incredibly feared Kalista, a champ that has been banned against him in 10 of their 21 matches. At 31.3% of his teams damage, only two players in all of Korea have a higher percentage than Ohq: Faker and Coco. Ohq is given a large amount of gold, told to carry, and does so.

The main engage threat on Najin, Pure has been a boon to Najin since he replaced Cain for good. While statistically not a strong argument could be made for Pure as an above average support, he passes the eye test and then some. With the three main carry system in place on Najin, Pure is often placed into the role as the only initiation or first initiation in team comps they design, often leading to his death upon team fight. He plays quite a lot of Alistar, Nautilus, and Thresh and has an aggressive style in lane which helps his partner in Ohq press advantages.

KT Rolster

Kim “ssumday” Chan-ho (김찬호)

Go “Score” Dong-bin (고동빈)

Kim “Ares” Min-kwon (김민권)

Kim “Nagne” Sang-moon (김상문)

Lee “Edge” Ho-sung (이호성)

No “Arrow” Dong-hyeon (노동현)

Jung “Fixer” Jae-woo (정재우)

Lee “Piccaboo” Jong-Beom (이종범)

The main carry of KT Rolster, Ssumday has been extremely impressive in his play this season. Showing massive variable styles and champs in the top lane, he’s played an astounding 11 champs in 21 matches: Maokai, Hecarim, Rumble, Renekton, Riven, Irelia, Ryze, Fizz, Yasuo, Lulu, and Gnar. He gets a lot of priority in KT, both in what picks he chooses and in gold percentage. He gains the most gold of any top laner in Korea at 23.7% and has the third highest CS differential at 10 minutes with +3.8. He has the second most kills of any top laner in Korea as well with 77, second only to Marin’s 82. KT looks their best whenever Ssumday gets a lead and finds a position where he can carry a match. His one-off top lane carry picks such as Riven, Fizz, Irelia, and Yasuo have been of note. Would like to see him explore more in that area of play as it does appear to be a huge strength of his.

Formerly an immortal ADC, Score has transitioned well to the jungle role and is the second member of this team that KT heavily relies on. While not a very flashy player, he brings smart, ingenious, and unpredictable ganking paths which allow him to gain these very surprising leads in the early game, gaining first blood in 62% of their matches. That same unpredictable pathing also leads to him making more than a few dubious mistakes. While he had a very rough time this past week against Watch and Bengi, it really appeared as if the whole of KT was overwhelmed in those matches. A very positive note of Score is that he is very much the catalyst for KT, he is third in Korea at his role in kill participation, contributing to 74.8% of his teams kills. He has the most assists of any jungler and the third least amount of deaths, showing that he knows the limits of what he plays. He’s trended heavily to Rek’Sai lately, playing her 7 of the past 9 matches. Earlier in the split he showed some really strong Evelynn play, would love to see a return to that champ and see what he can pull off. He’s becoming more comfortable in the jungle with every match and on the whole I’d put him easily in the top half at his position in Korea.

In mid lane, KT has recently started a small starting controversy as they’ve subbed in Edge over Nagne a couple of times recently, including playing the whole Najin series. While Nagne’s recent performance against the KOO Tigers wasn’t exactly inspiring, I have my doubts that Edge is the answer. Statistically, Nagne is about as average a mid as it gets. Down the line from KDA to CS at 10 minutes to damage and gold percentages, he’s as average as vanilla ice cream. He and Ggoong share a lot of the same champ pool, however Nagne has a more open mage side to him. Replacing him recently, Edge played Fizz against Faker and didn’t do much outside of one mechanically impressive double kill. He played Viktor in both matches against Ggoong’s Cassiopeia and had a very rough showing, particularly in game two. I’m not convinced Edge is the answer, but I’m also not convinced there was much of a problem. Nagne is average, but he’s a fairly known quantity. Either way, it’s very tough to talk about the mid lane situation here since they’ve started Edge recently and there’s so little to go on about him.

For ADC, KT Rolster has probably the worst laner in all of Korea with Arrow. It has been a bit of an anomaly that I just could never answer. There’s the Flame Horizon where your top laner is 100 CS up over the enemy top laner and there’s now the Arrow Hole where your ADC is 100 CS down to the enemy ADC. KT’s team dynamic has a bit of a conflict in that they have a great 1v1 carry top in Ssumday while having an ADC that should realistically avoid 2v2 lanes at all costs. Jokes aside, Arrow has somewhat played well this split. I feel he, like Ggoong on Najin, is a necessary replacement for KT to hit the next level. Right now they have one suitable carry player in Ssumday, and Arrow just isn’t filling the role he needs to be as a second main carry. Finding solace in a support not named Hachani, Arrow’s overall game has improved quite a bit alongside Fixer. Of starting marksmen, Arrow has the second highest kill participation. He gains the second lowest amount of gold of all ADC players at 24.8% while returning a good amount of overall damage for the team, 27.6%, good enough for sixth overall at his role. He’ll take Sivir any time he can get her and trends towards Corki as a second option. He’s played his only Draven match of the split so I don’t think we’ll see that again.

Much like Pure, Fixer has been a really solid player for KT, helping shore up the very large weakness Hachani had in previous splits. Again, much like Pure, his best play has come while on primary initiation champs such as Alistar, Thresh, and Nautilus, his Thresh in particular being absolutely incredible. In the past series against Najin he had very lackluster showings on Annie and Janna. Overall he’s shown a wide variety of champions with varying degrees of success. He’s been a positive addition to the team, bumping Arrow’s laning up from atrocious to workable. He didn’t have very large boots to fill.

Prediction

I bet against Jin Air in my past two set of the week articles and they proved me wrong. I would love to see KT Rolster show up here and prove they belong in the top half of Korea. I would love to see them adapt and open up the weaknesses to Najin. Unfortunately, I just don’t see that happening. Taking Najin 2-0. I feel Najin is stronger individually at every role and I’m worried about the KT management with their recent moves between Nagne and Edge, a lot of which has me baffled. Najin will continue their run to Worlds, KT will continue their summer slide, and all will be right in the world.