With only the finals remaining of Worlds 2017, we have locked in our two teams going to the “Bird’s Nest” in Beijing. These two teams are SK Telecom T1 and Samsung Galaxy. As is quite normal by this point, we’re getting another Korea vs Korea final, however, it is an unusual matchup in the sense that it’s a rematch of the final from last year. How does each team look going into the finals and what did their opposition play like? It’s quite a telling question of what we can expect in Beijing, even if things rarely go according to plan in worlds.

SK Telecom T1 vs Royal Never Give Up (3-2)

Starting out the Korea vs China clashes in the semifinals, we had SKT take on RNG. In a fantastic five game series with a lot of high quality play and close games, SKT barely won out to advance to the finals. A lot of this can be attributed to Huni’s excellent play on the side lane to create pressure for SKT, but most of all, the credit goes towards Faker and his stellar play on Galio. Playing Galio in all five games, Faker played a massive role in why SKT didn’t lose before the fifth game, and why SKT won the three games they did. Due to playing Galio, Faker could constantly shove his lane and roam elsewhere, which created a lot of map pressure for the side lanes to be able to play aggressively.

SKT showed us why they’re the best team in the world, by showing constant adaptation and the ability to learn from these adaptations. SKT also showcased the ability to play different strategies, towards different parts of the game, focusing on different players, truly showcasing their versatility. The team used Peanut as a closer for the first time, which was worrying for a lot of fans, but turned out exceptionally well as Peanut played an instrumental part in the last game. There are certainly still questions regarding SKT, as they seem to have issues regarding contesting map control and the lane performance of their bot lane is largely inconsistent.

I believe the reason SKT struggled so much however, lay in the fact that RNG was a true contender. Uzi has looked phenomenal all tournament long; he exploited Bang and Wolf together with his support Ming, won most bot lane match ups, And together with Mlxg played exceptionally well in team fights. On top of that, RNG had XIaohu, who could more or less hold his own against Faker. RNG was good at playing a team fight centered composition and could be considered the team fight gods of the tournament, as shown by their team fighting stats. The team played exceptionally well around bot side pressure and pick potential, however seemed to struggle at times with their set up for fights and could do little when Mlxg got neutralized early. After all is said and done, Faker’s incredible performance carried SKT through this series, but can he do so in the world finals?

Samsung Galaxy vs Team WE (3-1)

This series was a slightly more one-sided affair than the last one. In game 1, WE got a great composition focusing largely on Mystic’s Xayah and getting him ahead. What ended up happening however, was that while Mystic was certainly ahead, Xiye’s Kassadin and 957’s Shen got extremely far ahead. This allowed the scaling component and the front line of WE to hit their power spikes earlier, which rendered the team fighting of Samsung feeble and harmless.

After closing out game one, WE got to face Samsung at their best and what followed was a nasty display for the Chinese fans. Samsung, in three consecutive games completely dismantled Team WE, not giving them a chance in the games. Samsung is looking like a scary team right now, Crown looks to be rising up again and while he’s not back to the form he showed us last year, he is definitely looking like one of the better mid laners at the tournament. Meanwhile, Ambition looks like the strongest jungler, his performance seem inconsistent and at times he has little early impact and pressure, but when he does have the pressure he needs; Ambition can single handedly carry a game, unlike most junglers these days. CuVee is also a big threat in the top lane and will prove a difficult opponent for Huni, his laning is exceptional, he is phenomenal at playing tanks and playing around his team using teleport or global spells like Stand United. Yet he doesn’t have the same skillset of utilizing side pressure to create a massive split push threat that Huni has, so it’ll be quite an interesting matchup.

Team WE looked really weak sadly, it looked like they mostly rolled over and died, as if they were satisfied with their semifinal placement. WE was the weakest of the semifinal teams though, so them losing was quite expected, but the skill difference between SSG and WE should not have been as large as it seemed.

SK Telecom T1 vs Samsung Galaxy (3-2)

The final comes down to SKT and SSG once more. This might be a bit counter intuitive, however, Samsung does look like the better team right now. Ruler and Crown are looking pretty good, while Ambition, CoreJJ and CuVee are looking like monsters. They seem to have their team play down, they play defense well and control team fight zones exceptionally well, which gives their back line a lot of freedom. Ambition is phenomenal at identifying what he needs to do to achieve the win condition, and with such solid team fights it’s a mighty task to best them. Yet, with the performance Huni and Faker has had recently, SKT will be a hard opponent for Samsung, and with SKT’s history of being strong in a best of five series and how they’ve recently been proving their strength at adapting and learning; it’s hard to imagine them losing.

Samsung can certainly win games by getting an advantage bot lane, playing around bot side control and river control, while having a composition that out scale the one SKT has drafted. However, SKT can rely on their exceptional side lane control from Huni and play around both top and bot side depending on Faker’s lane control. SKT is a much more versatile team than SSG, which will be important for the finals. Regardless, this should be one of the closer finals we’ve ever had, which is incredibly exciting and there’s a definite chance that Samsung ends up as the winners this year.

I hope you enjoyed this article, do consider leaving me a comment with your thoughts or feedback in the reddit thread. Also consider following me on Twitter for any updates on my articles. This week I wanted to try something different so I have a ramble coming out soon where I go more in depth on the SKT vs RNG series which will be linked on my Twitter, other than that you can check out my other Worlds articles here. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 & Part 5.

Photo Credit: OGN & Garena.