“Really?” Im sure you’re tired of hearing about Korea, but this is one tournament that the general opinion seems to favor regions not named LCK. It’s fair to believe otherwise but, whats unfair to do is under-appreciate all the things SKT did right in their last two sets, and ultimately winning LCK this split. I want to walk through, and make the case for a successful SKT run this MSI. For us to do this correctly lets go back in time and lay the groundwork.

Rewind to 2017,

Faker, a dominate force, brings his team to the World Finals. Heading into the series, the “SSG coach speaks to Inven Global” also referencing his relevance;

“The only weakness-like problem that SKT has is that: they rely too much on Faker. If we take advantage of this — correctly — we might have a “chance” to defeat them.”

Let’s stop there, this was the year of Fakers strongman impression, bot lane being gravity, and the atlas stone, the physical manifestation of his team being lifted to place. A year where, coming into finals SKT relied on Faker to balance out the map on picks like “Galio” & to a lesser extent huni to reach an eventual 1–3–1 / 1–4 approach to close games. If you’d like to revisit 2017 SKT and my Pre-Finals thoughts + Analysis you can click “This”. SKT ultimately lost that Finals series leaving a crushed Faker in it’s wake, and a SKT looking to rebuild.

Fast forward back to 2019,

Off the back of SKT’s last two series & winning LCK Spring we’re in a very different situation in terms of what and where Faker’s required. A Faker reliant SKT coming into MSI is unlikely. The balance has shifted and in a very interesting way. No longer is the early game deficit to be solely re-acquired through early to mid game & onward transitions. That being done via Fakers balancing act in combination with his jungler ( or sometimes top) like it was in 2017. Instead that balancing burdens been shifted and shared with SKT’s bottom lane who’ve held solid coming into the tournament. I highlight this to bring to conversation the restructuring of map balance for SKT’s approach. I’m not here to debate whether it’s intentional on SKT’s part, i’m here to discuss it for what it is, why it’s interesting, and how it affects their games coming into MSI. A major part of the balancing act, is the center of the map, mid lane, and how SKT utilize and act in their 1–3–1 formations.

How do they do it?

With SKT’s botlane performing well coming into MSI a huge part of that map balance can be met via their duo lane priority. This gives SKT the ability to maintain the mid lane after lane phase has ended. This is significant because this is where & how SKT have managed to mitigate their early deficits from years past creating opportune situations for scaling to relevance. It also provides SKT with the ability to create vision advantages on objectives like dragon, jungle buffs and vision to extend up to opposing tier two’s. Once that’s completed, it gives SKT the tools to punish through collapsing, and taking picks through that same mid control slowly buffering out deficits, or buying necessary time to outscale. It’s at these points SKT display strong game knowledge and the discipline to cut loose ends or make snap decisions to commit for kills.

What about top?

Often through their series with KZ Khan was the weak end of the map for SKT, but come their match with GRF he mildly redeemed himself. Throughout this, Khan benefits from the continued reliability that his Bot lane has brought to the center of the map in terms of map balance. This has provided the ability to have a sustained 1–3–1 formation on whim. What this has done is allow Khan to at the very least continue to manage a side waves on multiple occasions to give his team minion advantages on any particular side of the map while also collecting gold in matchups he was down kills.

What about SKT VS “Insert Team”?

How does this matchup with opposing teams in MSI? Lets switch the way we approach that question and instead lay down two circumstances;

Early game deficits on the side of SKT. Are opposing teams going to be capable of transitioning potential early leads into eventual victory? SKT’s ability to bide past the early phase of the game; buying back leads through mid control and to extension 1–3–1’s allowing for scaling opportune collapses, team fight situations.

Now, if im to weigh the two, I believe higher probability of the later. This combats SKT’s issue of the game slipping away due to opposing death squads. Which would ultimately buy them the time to peak into a stronger position or find opportune picks, using mid lane control into river to dictate their fights. Now the most anyone can due prior to group stage is speculate, and use our own knowledge & research to help us form opinions, and make predictions.

As it stands, I believe SKT’s post lane phase/Early game structuring is their biggest tool, and will be their biggest deciding factor in how far they make their run through this tournament. If done right and maintained, we could very well see a SKT MSI run this 2019.