The fourth week of Champions Summer 2015 continues onward with the set of the split thus far, pitting the two remaining undefeated teams against each other in CJ Entus and SK Telecom T1. In a week of overall fairly weak matches, this one stands above every other set played thus far. CJ Entus has revenge on their mind here on day three after the extremely unfortunate loss in semifinals back in the Spring playoffs, where SK Telecom came back from being down 0-2 to win the set and advance to the finals.

Coming into this, CJ Entus is 4-0 in sets and 8-3 in overall matches. They’ve begun a trend that makes their fans clutch their hearts, lose one game to destroy all hope. Then they win the next two games and wrangle the fans back in with some fresh hope. Losing the first match of their sets in three of the past four, they have learned the art of bouncing back, taking those three sets in 2-1 wins. The only team they beat in two games was SBENU Sonicboom, and even their second game was rough for fans.

SK Telecom, on the other hand, has stampeded through this split with fairly little resistance. Dropping two matches thus far, they are 5-0 in sets and 10-2 in overall matches. Outside of a slip up against Anarchy in game two, they have been almost perfect with Faker in the match at 8-1.

Stat of note, since the Cinderhulk patch these two teams have been seemingly unbeatable. SK Telecom sitting at a total 33-9 in matches played since Cinderhulk shook up the meta, only losing one set to EDward Gaming at the Mid-Season Invitational. CJ Entus was revitalized by the Cinderhulk meta, going 19-6 since its introduction and only dropping one set to SK Telecom T1 in Spring semifinals.

CJ ENTUS

Park “Shy” Sang-myeon (박상면)

Kwon “Helper” Yeong-jae (권영재)

Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong (강찬용)

Kim “Trick” Gang-yun (김강윤)

Shin “CoCo” Jin-young (신진영)

Kwak “Bdd” Bo-seong (곽보성)

Seon “Space” Ho-san (선호산)

Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun (장용준)

Hong “Madlife” Min-gi (홍민기)

Jeong “Max” Jong-big (정종빈)

One of the longest lasting players in the Korean scene, Shy is both one of the teams strongest points and weakest points. His overall versatility is desired with a top laner, showing the ability to excel both in 1v1 play and in lane swap play, on support style picks, team fighting tanks, and split push monsters. However, he comes with the caveat of being unable to play certain top tier meta picks for whatever reason. His inability to play Gnar during the majority of the Spring split hurt the teams pick ban process and his inability to play Hecarim at a solid level hurt when Hecarim was one of the best picks later in the Spring split. All in all, the pros more than outweigh the cons with Shy. He brings a stable and reliable top lane style with fearsome carry potential. His smite-teleport Shyvana was, and continues to be, a strong top lane pocket pick. All in all, Shy will most likely trend towards Maokai and Rumble, top champs he shares in common with his lane partner tonight.

Ambition’s play in the jungle has been quite surprising. A player many called to be replaced back when he was a mid on the disappointing CJ Blaze, his transition to the jungle has been fairly solid. The meta right now is the best environment for him to succeed, with the best picks in the jungle meta being extremely forgivable in their play. His mistakes are not abused in the way they might be if we were in a more carry oriented jungle meta, along with jungle competition being down since the exodus, but for now he’s working out for CJ Entus. Recently, he’s broken out Nunu, a champ he seems to mesh perfectly with, so I would expect that pick to be hotly contested if Bengi plays.

Going up against the Faker/Easyhoon combo is a mid I believe to be the second best at his role in Korea, CoCo. With an expansive champion pool and a carry style, CoCo has really stepped up this year in being a leader for this CJ Entus squad. Becoming known on Xenics Storm alongside former teammate Swift, CoCo joined with the CJ organization after Winter 2013. The mid-jungle synergy between he and Swift would continue, as the extremely aggressive jungler had one thing in mind: get CoCo rolling and he’ll carry the match. Like Swift before him, the synergy Ambition has with CoCo leads to the mid lane snowball happening often. His versatility in the mid lane leads to him having a choice for any situation. Known for sporting the best Kassadin and Jayce play in Korea, he’ll be a formidable opponent for the duel SK Telecom mid laners. Lately, he’s picked up on Cassiopeia and Azir, like most mid laners.

Another player people have clamored to have replaced is Space. Being with the CJ organization since October 2012, he has never quite lived up to the “dominates scrims” hype that has surrounded him. Keeping his bot lane partner in a fan created “Space prison”, it became a meme of sorts that he would continue on with CJ Entus despite being an underperforming marksman his entire career. During the exodus and the merger, everyone claimed CJ had no choice but the stick with Emperor. He had played well on Blaze, and Space had worn his welcome out with fans of the organization. They ended up sticking with Space and the decision appears to have paid off. With the top marksmen leaving Korea during the exodus, Space finally delivered. With some great Sivir, Corki, Kog’Maw, and Urgot play, along with his own pick Jinx, a champ most Koreans trend against due to the immobility, he’s finally performing well and as a result, CJ Entus is back near the top in Korea for the first time since Spring 2013. As of late, Space has been putting time into Sivir and Vayne mostly, showing little overlap with his lane counterparts champ pool.

For the beginning part of Spring 2015, it appeared like Space was the one that was truly in prison. Madlife had noticeably declined in his abilities over the past year and people took notice. His Nami and Janna play, the champs he trended to most, were poor. With the meta shift, however, he’s picked up and started playing more champs that fit his play making style. Being a little revitalized, Madlife is still probably the weakest member of this team, but picking up more Thresh, Alistar, and Nautilus lately puts him in positions to do what he does best and is most comfortable in.

None of the CJ Entus subs have played thus far, although they sport a ten man roster.

SK TELECOM T1

Jang “MaRin” Gyeong-hwan (장경환)

Bae “bengi” Seong-ung (배성웅)

Im “T0m” Jae-hyeon (임재현)

Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok (이상혁)

Lee “Easyhoon” Ji-hoon (이지훈)

Lee “Scout” Yae-chan (이예찬)

Bae “Bang” Jun-sik (배준식)

Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan (이재완)

Having already talked about SK Telecom back story in the set of the week vs KOO Tigers, this section will be mostly about their picks and what to expect.

Marin has been one of many bright spots on this SK Telecom T1 roster. Along with Bang, they are the only players that have played every match this season for SK Telecom. Thus far this season, Marin has trended towards the exact picks his lane counterpart in Shy has trended towards, Maokai and Rumble. Ryze will be a highly contested pick as well, however I expect it to be banned out entirely. Gnar may also be relied on heavily by Marin as the pick has seen a bit of a resurgence and Shy’s shown an inability to play it.

Bengi and Tom have split time similar to Faker and Easyhoon, Tom playing four of the twelve games while Bengi playing the remaining eight. Both have shared Rek’Sai and Gragas play, however Bengi has played his signature Nunu and Evelynn whereas Tom has shown off Sejuani. Different champions being played by both players, along with differing play styles, lends a big edge to SK Telecom in the jungle department. As stated earlier, Nunu should be priority between these two teams as Ambition’s best game play this season has come on Nunu, a champ he’s 10-1 on over the past two splits with an astounding 9.2 KDA with 80% Kill Participation, all of those games coming in his past 25 matches.

Like their jungle situation, SK Telecom splits time between their two world class mid laners in Faker and Easyhoon. Faker has played nine of the twelve games, while Easyhoon has played the remaining three. In his nine matches, Faker has played seven different champions: Orianna, Kog’Maw, Irelia, Varus, Viktor, Ezreal, and Cassiopeia. He has a combined 48-14-48 KDA, an incredible 6.86 KDA. In fact, Faker is in the midst of one of the most spectacular runs of play in the games history. In his last 32 matches played, he has racked up 171 kills, 56 deaths, and 211 assists for a 6.82 KDA. He has played 16 different champs over those 32 matches: Orianna, Viktor, Kog’Maw, Irelia, Varus, Cassiopeia, Ezreal, Lulu, Diana, Ahri, Vladimir, Anivia, Leblanc, Azir, Xerath, and Kassadin, gathering wins on all of those except for the cursed Xerath. In that span, SK Telecom is 27-5. So when people tell you Faker isn’t as good as he used to be, show them the facts. With Easyhoon in the game, you only have to go 15 games deep for them to match that amount of losses. There’s really only so much one can say about Faker though. He’ll be going up against his toughest competitor in Korea at the moment in CoCo. Wide champion pools and a brand new patch make predicting champs tough, it’ll be a wide open contest in the mid lane.

In a tank heavy meta, the SK Telecom marksman Bang has trended towards more early-mid game champs instead of later game tank busters. Also absent from his pool as of late is the incredibly popular Sivir choice. SK Telecom’s pick ban has not put much emphasis on the pick lately, which I would pin down as a notable weakness. In lieu of the Sivir pick, Bang has instead opted for Ezreal, Lucian, and Corki as of late, along with a fearsome Kalista pick that he is 9-0 all time on with a 14 KDA. Yes, 14. Over 9 matches. Much like everyone else on SK Telecom, he has been performing at a high level with a total KDA of 6.05, 42-19-73 over Lucian, Corki, Vayne, Ezreal, Kalista, and Urgot this season.

Wolf has recovered somewhat nicely from the poor performance he showed at the Mid-Season Invitational. Like Madlife, Alistar, Thresh, and Janna are his top three picks and he has one rogue Braum match, the only loss SK Telecom has this split. Overall, he’s shown good vision control in tandem with Bengi and Tom along with being a strong play maker on his Alistar, of which he’s 0-11-66 in six matches. With a lot of overlap between he and Madlife, it’ll be interesting to see how the two face off.

The lone sub on SK Telecom, Scout, has still yet to play.

PREDICTION

While predictions are quite hard to make due to the two potential subs on SK Telecom, I feel we’ll see a 2-0 set victory in favor of SK Telecom. CJ Entus, while being undefeated in sets thus far, have just not done so as convincingly as I would like to see. If they stumble out of the gates in this BO3 like they have in the past, I don’t see SK Telecom dropping a game to them. At every position I see SK Telecom being superior to CJ Entus sans the mid lane when Easyhoon is in. A lot of priority picks in this one to watch out for. Ryze has been proven to be absurdly overtuned so look at that champ to be perma banned. Shy and Marin sharing Maokai and Rumble dominance lately will most likely have them trading those picks. Alistar is the signature champ of both Madlife and Wolf, seeing which support lands the cow will be crucial to this series. Lastly, the Nunu pick. In the past, Nunu has been a center piece of SK Telecom strategy with Bengi being the perfect vision control, supportive style jungler. Ambition has adopted that style and champion, leading to incredible success.