Coming down the final quarter of the regular season, SK Telecom takes on their final apparent threat to the crown in Korea with the KOO Tigers challenging them. Outside of this set, it really looks like SK Telecom may go the full regular season without dropping a single set. The KOO Tigers look to continue their growth as a team coming into the match hot off a 13 match win streak. These two teams are the consensus number one and number two in Korea. Other interesting match ups to check out this week include CJ Entus vs Najin e-mFire and KT Rolster vs Jin Air Green Wings. Both of those sets will help clear the smoke that has been looming over the middle of the pack in Korea for most of this split.

Entering this set, the KOO Tigers are 9-3 in total sets along with an excellent 20-8 total match record, sitting at second place in the standings. They have moved themselves into a comfortable foothold on the Korean mountain below the SK Telecom giants and just above the rest of the pack that are scrambling among themselves for playoff spots. Riding a 13 match win streak, this season the Tigers have knocked off Jin Air, KT Rolster, and CJ Entus. Their three set losses coming at the hands of Najin e-mFire, SK Telecom, and CJ Entus, all of which came in the first three weeks of the split. They have won eight consecutive sets and have really rallied their team together after an initial slow start. They will be squaring off against a team that they have not taken a single match off of in their past seven meetings, including a devastating 3-0 sweep in the Spring finals.

Sitting in first place atop the Korean standings, SK Telecom comes into this 12-0 in total sets and 24-2 in total matches. With their 2-0 set win against Jin Air last week extending their win streak to 15 matches, they inch closer and closer to the Korean record 20 match win streak SK Telecom T1 K set from the start of Winter 2013-2014 into their group stage matches during Spring 2014. Their lone match losses coming at the hands of Anarchy and Samsung, two one-off poor performances, SK Telecom is looking absolutely unstoppable.

Head to Head Matchup

The main match up to focus on this week is in the top lane between Marin and Smeb. These teams have thrived lately with giving their two carry top laners the resources and attention to take the game over and run with it. While SK Telecom as a team typically does this by freeing up resources around the map for Marin, KOO defers to giving Smeb more jungle attention and pressure by way of both Wisdom and Hojin’s jungle tendency to be top lane focused.

Here they are by the numbers this split.

Marin

Kills: 107

Deaths: 48

Assists: 167

K+A/D: 5.7

Kill Participation: 62.0%

Death Percentage: 23.3%

CS Differential at 10: +8.7

Damage Percentage: 26.2%

Gold Percentage: 23.7%

Earned Gold Per Minute: 278.8

Unique Champion Wins: 8

Smeb

Kills: 79

Deaths: 64

Assists: 236

K+A/D: 4.9

Kill Participation: 71.0%

Death Percentage: 21.6%

CS Differential at 10: +5.3

Damage Percentage: 22.3%

Gold Percentage: 21.5%

Earned Gold Per Minute: 233.5

Unique Champion Wins: 8

KOO Tigers

Coached by Jeong “NoFe” No-chul

Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho (송경호)

Lee “Hojin” Ho-Jin (이호진)

Kim “Wisdom” Tae-wan (김태완)

Lee “KurO” Seo-haeng (이서행)

Kim “Pray” Jong-in (김종인)

Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon (강범현)

The true breakout star on this roster, Smeb was not thought very highly of prior to this year, of which he spent it in the Incredible Miracle organization. The lone highlight of his career prior to this year was him crushing the top laner of SK Telecom T1 K, Impact, with his superb Riven. Outside of that Smeb was just a rarely thought of top laner and coming into this year he was one of the large question marks for the Tigers. It didn’t take long for him to erase the doubts of his audience, as the Tigers steam rolled through the first half of the Spring split. With the top lane being placed front and center in front of all the cameras in the current meta, Smeb has shown he has no stage fright and has performed exceptionally well in a region with a wealth of top lane talent. During their impressive win streak, Smeb has shown a wide range of champ play, performing exceptionally well on Nautilus, Maokai, and Rumble, along with a couple one-off games on Riven, Ryze, Fizz, and Hecarim. He’s a threat on every meta champ in the top lane and is the main focus for KOO’s success. He also holds the title as the team’s primary shot caller.

The one large remaining question mark for me, Wisdom and Hojin both combine to form a solid jungle duo, trading off games every now and then. Wisdom has played in four of the past five sets, splitting the most recent set vs Incredible Miracle, so it does appear like KOO may have started settling in on one jungler, although it’s unclear. Wisdom is a prospect of a player out of the Incredible Miracle organization, playing in Summer 2014 and half of Spring 2015, while Hojin has a bit more experience than him joining the Najin organization late in Spring last year. Hojin’s lack of consistent success led the Tigers to bringing in the prospect to strengthen their line up and it’s shown some remarkable success. One of the marks against Wisdom in his time with Incredible Miracle was that he would show really high upside at times, a very mechanically skilled player, yet revert back to poor performances through his awful decision making. Hojin, on the other hand, was a solo queue wonder when Najin picked him up, yet he has never shown the mechanical prowess that certain other junglers have shown. His decision making and self-professed stage fright have hindered his performances through his career. As of late, both junglers have shown off some strong game play on a variety of jungle champs, particularly in Evelynn, a champ that’s seen a good amount of priority in Korea. These two also have very distinct roles within the team, Hojin falling into a more supportive role while Wisdom takes on a bit more of a carry role from the jungle. The jungle performances from these two really determines how far the Tigers will go. If they remain consistent this team can possibly make a really strong Worlds run, yet the thought in the back of my head leaves me doubting the duo.

A player that has really stepped his game up and entered into a form that he hasn’t shown since his Incredible Miracle days, Kuro has been one of the biggest contributors to this team’s spark lately. Not typically known for carry performances, Kuro has once again melted into the meta as if it was made for him. I feel I’m one of the few that thinks pretty highly of him and how he doesn’t seem to be stifled in any meta. Just a very versatile player that I admire. KOO has a pretty interesting dynamic in that Kuro finds himself with quite a lot of raw resources, kills and CS, yet he almost never calls for jungle pressure in lane. He very much holds a farming play style in lane, being fairly passive in the early game, in that he’ll be content just farming up, soaking up some enemy jungle pressure, and never dying. He holds the lowest amount of deaths in relation to his team of any mid laner, only 13.5% of his team’s deaths come from him. Now, you would think his damage isn’t impressive then if he’s such a passive player. On the contrary, he holds the third highest damage per minute in the entire league despite KOO having the fourth shortest game time. He puts out a lot of damage through the course of a game and is a team fighting monster, very smart in his positioning he has racked up the second highest kill participation of all mid laners at 73.8%. Lately? Kuro’s kind of abused the hell out of Viktor, a pick he initially brought into the meta back in Spring. He’s a combined 11-0 on the pick this year, sporting a massive 8.8 KDA.

The bot lane for KOO consists of Pray and Gorilla, one of the more stable bot lanes in the region. Back in Spring, they were considered far and away the best bot lane in the region while they’ve come on back down to earth in Summer. Still, they are a very strong bot lane that garners a good amount of focus within the team. Pray entered the year as the second massive question mark for the Tigers as he had taken a split off from the game last Summer to get a little more focus on the game. Like Smeb, he erased the doubts swiftly with some exceptional performances in Spring, being the second main carry on the team. The center of the innovative “Juggermaw” composition, Pray ran rampant in Spring racking up a 7.8 KDA, the highest of all starting players in the league. His partner in crime, Gorilla, was one of the top supports last year on Najin White Shield. Leading the lackluster team to Worlds when it seemed all hope was lost after a poor Summer performance, Gorilla has been heralded as the best support in Korea all year long. In both splits, he has shown a massive array of champs with outstanding performances all around. Funny enough, this bot lane mainly centers around four picks: Sivir, Corki, Alistar, and Annie. Those are the champs this bot lane prioritizes above all else and they have delivered all split long.

SK TELECOM T1

Coached by Kim “KkOma” Jeong-gyun

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)

As spoken about previously, Marin is the center of attention on SK Telecom. He is the most dominant voice within the team, the oldest member at 24 years of age, and the primary shot caller in game. The meta also entirely revolves around his success. With all that considered, SK Telecom have played around Marin more so than any other team does with their respective top laners. Marin has been force fed by SK Telecom all split long, bringing in the most gold of any top laner at 23.7% and has the highest earned gold per minute of any top laner at 278.8. Despite having the best player in the world in the mid lane, they have played the current meta to near perfection, identifying the key strengths that come about whenever their top laner snowballs. Originally regarded as a project player, he was lauded as the Faker of top lane coming out of solo queue with his incredible mechanics and aggressiveness. Unfortunately, his solo queue prowess did not translate to competitive immediately. All mechanics and no game sense held him back in many ways. With experience and many trials by fire, he has come out the other side a much stronger top laner. As of recently, he has been enjoying the Maokai and Fizz, although he has one of the most devastating Rumble’s in the entire world sitting ready for use.

Someone I don’t think particularly highly of, Bengi has had a pretty solid split to be completely honest. He is definitely on the waning edge of his career mechanically, but in nearly every other aspect he’s still quite solid for the team and has cut down on the whole dying to the enemy when he’s not near his own team stuff that had plagued him over the past year. He has worked really well in tandem with Marin to get the game snowballed out of control and gives up a lot for that to happen, giving Marin as many jungle camps as he so desires. His Rek’Sai, Gragas, and Nunu have all been strong this split, while his Evelynn has been pretty solid. One trait I must give him props for is his ability to set a carry up for success, giving everything to them so they can run with a game. He used to do it with Faker, currently he’s doing so with Marin. While I don’t think highly of him as a player anymore, that is a trait that is quite admirable and something junglers all around the world can take a note or two on.

There’s little one can say about Faker. He’s the best player to ever touch this game and has utterly dominated in the least mid focused meta in recent memory. After last week, Faker is now in 10th place of starting mid laners in how much gold he retains in relation to his team, yet he deals the second most overall damage in the entire league. This guy is obscenely efficient to the point where he’s damn near a robot. A lot of people have said that this split isn’t as impressive due to the exodus last Winter, yet I just look at the stats and I look at his play with my own eyes and see someone who’s returned to his peak form. This split he has been styling on the entire region, breaking out Irelia and Master Yi as bravery picks. Just like Kuro, Faker’s Viktor is exceptionally fearsome as he’s 7-0 on the champ this year with an 11.62 KDA. Expect to see that champ banned away from both sides. Or Faker’s going to let Kuro have it just to take away his undefeated record. Alongside Faker, Easyhoon performed against Jin Air this past week for the first time in nearly a month. He broke out Orianna and Twisted Fate, two picks he was known for back in his younger days, and performed nicely on them, leading SK Telecom to two sound victories against the Green Wings.

The bot lane pairing is one made for eternity it seems, Bang and Wolf. Originally paired together on Najin Shield back in late 2012, the two split apart for a few months before reuniting on SK Telecom S in late 2013. Since then, they’ve been near inseparable outside of a stint where Bang courted Piccaboo this past Spring. One of the most consistent duos in Korea for well over a year now, this is one of the stronger points in this roster as they’ve been extremely versatile, working well in any meta, whether it be lane dominant or as they are now, relegated to a secondary carry. This split, the pair has been very solid altogether despite receiving extremely little resources or attention, Bang bringing in the absolute lowest amount of gold of all starting marksmen. Despite that, the versatility from the duo all split long has been much appreciated. One champ of note to watch in this set is the vaunted Corki pick, of which Bang is 20-1 on in 2015. Between Pray’s prevalence with the pick and Bang’s record, expect this pick to be highly contested. Wolf has also, much like Gorilla, trended towards Alistar as his main support choice with Janna as a second choice. Bang and Wolf hold the highest KDA in the league, together sitting at 8.2.

PREDICTION

As much as I would enjoy to see KOO show up and take it to SK Telecom, if anything to show a chink in their nigh unbreakable armor, I don’t see it happening. KOO has dropped seven matches in a row to SK Telecom and I’m not entirely buying into the large win streak KOO has shown this split due to who they’ve done it against, lower tier opponents. Expecting a solid 2-0 set win for SK Telecom, strengthening the idea that they will go undefeated in sets this split.