KT Rolster A – Can they be as good as their sister team?

Vitamin (Top)

KakaO (Jungle)

Zero (Mid)

Hiro (ADC)

Me5 (Supp)





- 5th ~ 8th OGN Champions Winter (L 1:3 KTB)

- 5th ~ 8th NLB Winter (L 1:2 MVP Blue)

Team review

As LoL’s popularity grew larger, many of the kespa organizations were always looking at the right moment to jump into the LoL scene. KT Rolster, saw its opportunity to jump into the scene when the StarTale LoL team was disbanded and they picked up its former members to form KT Rolster’s own LoL team. The first team which was formed, now known as KT A, was led by the former Najin Shield ADC Hiro and former StartTale player Vitamin. The rest of the team was assembled with then new comers Reset (Murloc), Knight of Zero and Wall. After an underwhelming performance in the Winter season where KT A was overshadowed by their sister team KT B, the team underwent an overhaul again when Reset left due to personal reasons and Wall also left. They were replaced by Me5, the former MVP Blue support player and KakaO the jungler from KT B. With these additions along with the existing group of players, this year’s KT A team is ready to show that they are as good as their sister team KT B.

The current rendition of the KT A team will likely look to cause mini team fights all throughout the game led by KakO and Zero who will likely play a champion with teleport or a global. Even when they get to the team fighting stage, it is likely that they will look for specific engagements where they can catch the opposition off guard instead of trying to fight a full 5 vs 5 team fight. As a result, look for KT A games to be action packed with high amount of kills and look for the games to be back and forth with plenty of throws.

Team Strengths

Ganking force of KakaO

One of the main reasons that KT A has adapted this new approach of having many mini team fights is the play style of KakaO as a jungler. KakaO is a player who excels at ganking, especially lane ganking. When KakaO first joined tem KT B, he was usually playing a background role to Score, Ryu and Ragan but as he gathered more competitive experience, KakaO developed into a reliable playmaker for KT B. Especially in the matches against Blaze, KakaO showed that he can carry games and during the off-season he has shown that he has developed further as a player after finally realizing what he excels in. With his high mechanical skills, large champion pool and innovative ganking routes, look for KakaO to be making plays for his new team at any time facet of the game.

Versatility of Zero

Zero is a player who is not talked about a lot as a top mid laner in the Korean scene but he is definitely one of the most unique mid laners that Korea has to offer. In his matches Zero has played at least 10 different champions and some champions on this list include Olaf, Nunu, Nasus and Fizz. With the competency to play these many champions in a competitive setting, Zero offers an immense amount of strategic value to his team. Aside from his champion choices, Zero is also not too shabby when it comes to other aspects of the game. Even during his amateur days, Zero was known as a good mid laner, especially in 1 v 1 situations. The jungle upgrade that he received during the off-season can only help him grow into a more dominant force in the scene. Zero has already shown during the short time that he played with KakaO, they have a good synergy between them and this can only translate into better performances moving forward. During this season of champions it will be interesting if Zero can establish himself as one of the best mid laners in the tournament and it will also be interesting to see what new champions he can bring out from his bag of tricks.

Surprisingly solid bottom lane

So far in their matches, KT A has shown that their new bottom duo of Hiro and Me5 were stronger than what people were led to believe. Hiro is a player that has been in the LoL scen for a long time and while he doesn’t have the high mechanical ability compared to some of the younger players in the scene, he is rarely found to be doing something he shouldn’t be doing. Hiro also fits the current meta by playing a style similar to Score in that he always tries in every team fight to prioritize surviving as the most important goal instead of forward flashing, forward netting etc. to grab an extra kill. Me5 is a player that loves to play Lulu and he has shown that given the opportunity he can change the course of a team fight with a great Ult used either to save someone or used offensively as a knock up. More importantly, he and Hiro seemed to be on the same page when they were laning together. Since Hiro is a player who isn’t overly aggressive in the lane, Me5 was seen to play accordingly in the lane and allowing Hiro to just cs in the lane. While this duo of Hiro and Me5 may not make the flashiest plays in the game, their solid consistent play will be a valuable asset for the team going forward.





Team weaknesses

Vulnerability of Vitamin

Vitamin is a player who’s also been in the LoL scene for a long time but he is definitely a player who has not been able to make his mark in the LoL scene. Part of Vitamin’s problem is that he has no champions that he really dominates with and while he can have one or two games where he can dominate, the other times he’s largely kept under control and his influence on the game is very minimal. As such, Vitamin may be sought after as the weakest link on the team and teams facing KT A could potentially look to exploit this weakness. The weakness of Vitamin also limits the team fighting potential of KT A and therefore, the strength of KT A goes down exponentially in long drawn out games where the global gold remains generally even. During this season of Champions winter, Vitamin needs to show that he can go toe to toe with the likes of Flame, MakNooN and Impact while showing that he can stay ahead of the likes of Cheonju and Homme. Should he not be up to task for this, it may the last season of OGN Champions that we see Vitamin in competitive play.

Suspect long game management

The mark of a good team is not only that they have solid members at every position on the team or that they can team fight very well. A good team must know how to manage a long drawn out game and grind out a win in these situations. So far KT A has not shown that given an even game, they can win by managing the game and going into 5 v 5 team fight situations. Having more time to practice will remedy this flaw somewhat but fundamentally, they need their tank line to be able to perform really well in late game situations. This means with KakaO usually playing the role of the anti-carry, Vitamin will need to learn to become a better initiator and a peeler for his carries. Having a team like KT B to scrim against will definitely help a lot with this situation as unlike KT A, the KT B team performs well in team fight situations led by solid plays from ssumday and inSec. If KT A can learn from their sister team KT B, the KT Rolster teams will be as feared as the CJ Entus teams.

Key player: KakaO (Jungle)

Given the team’s flaws, it will be important for KakaO to create advantageous situations especially for his solo laners so that his team can get an advantage which they can snowball and win during the mid- game phase. Being such a great ganker, he can create unexpected situations at any given moment and the amount of presence he can exert in any given game will directly correlate to the amount of success this season’s KT A team will have.

Team expectations

KT A can definitely finish 3rd in their group but if they do, they will have a high chance of meeting CJ Frost or a repeat of last year’s quarterfinals match-up which could signal a quick exit for KT A.







