SK Telecom or T1 had a terrible year in 2018, the worst on record for the organization. Far from reaching Worlds, they placed 7th in the LCK Summer Split and were, justifiably, upset about their performance. No one could blame them, this was the greatest team of all time who had just placed in the bottom half of their regional split after being beat in the Finals of Worlds the previous year. These events together displayed a downward trend for the entire organization. Faker, of all, was extremely upset and really wanted to get back the following year, 2019. Together, Faker and kKomma, reformed the entire team to make a deeper impact on the regional and, hopefully, the international stage.

SKT’s 2019:

SKT, earlier this year, completely rebuilt their roster from the ground up. Faker even expressed his desire to win the Summoner’s Cup in 2019 when he was working on this roster. Unlike SKT’s 2018 roster, which was filled to the brim with rookies around the Unkillable Demon King, SKT’s 2019 roster was, without question, supposed to be a super team. It featured Khan in the top lane, Clid in the Jungle, Faker in the mid lane, Teddy in the bot lane along with Mata and Effort playing the role of support.

To nobody’s surprise, SKT did insanely well in the Spring Spit, beating everyone and claiming the 1st place in LCK split, locking their place at MSI and the less important Rift Rivals. SKT was on fire, even at MSI, being the only team to beat Invictus Gaming, defending World Champions at the time, in the group stage. You, as a spectator, would be forgiven to think that they could actually win MSI. However, they would face the European powerhouse, G2 Esports. Sadly for SKT, they would lose to the eventual MSI Champions and go home defeated, yet again.

Three of the top four teams at MSI- Team Liquid, Invictus Gaming, and SKT – fell in the following splits. Almost all of them were performing badly, SKT in particular, was doing bad, losing to a lot of teams. They, however, managed to turn things around when they brought in Effort in place of Mata. They managed to scrap 4th place in the standings, far from ideal but they, at the very least, made it to playoffs. They managed to run the entire gauntlet and beat Griffin in the finals, again.

SKT made it to Worlds again after missing it completely in 2018, and they made sure to leave a big impact. They went 5-1 in their group stage, losing only to Fnatic once in the ‘toughest’ Worlds group of all time. SKT, however, lost again in the semifinals to none other than G2 Esports.

This semifinal, in particular, showed flaws in SKT against G2 Esports. G2 capitalized on each mistake that SKT made. With that defeat, T1 went back home.

Now, did SKT succeed in 2019?

Well, yes, yes they did however, the answer is still complicated. As compared to 2018, their surge in performance was exemplary. They managed to win both LCK splits, a feat they accomplished last in 2015. They did extremely well, regionally. Internationally, they faltered twice, falling to the same team, their Achilles’ Heal, G2 Esports, a team that completed a similar feat in Europe and also went on to win MSI. Their year can be labeled as a success but I really don’t think Faker would’ve thought the same, given his expectation for 2019 was to lift the glorious Summoners’ Cup again.

The organization as a whole made its mark again, however now they’ve become challengers as compared to what they were during their golden years. (As a fun fact, I wanted to point out that only European teams have been able to take games off of SKT internationally except for that one game at MSI when they lost to Invictus Gaming in the group stage)

What can we expect from SKT’s 2020?

SKT, or now, T1 has a lot going for them. First, until they have Faker, they will always be considered contenders because of the aura they have created around them. Teddy and Effort are also an extremely good bot lane duo. However, T1 lost their backbone, kKomma, the greatest coach of all time, who left them for Vici Gaming in China. They lost Clid to Gen.G, who aim to achieve a similar goal to SKT’s 2019 in 2020. They also lost Khan to the 2019 World Champions, FunPlus Phoenix. Finally, they lost Mata, who retired to become the coach of the RNG, the Chinese powerhouse.

All of this does make T1 seem weaker but from what how we’ve them perform before, they can always come on top, even when the odds are stacked against them, like running through the entire gauntlet and coming 1st. All that we can do is wait and watch.

Spacey

Images were taken from Dot Esports