Champions continues on in the first round robin during week 5 with the first set of our week as the Jin Air Green Wings face off against CJ Entus. Other matches of note include CJ Entus vs Najin e-mFire and SK Telecom vs Longzhu Incredible Miracle, but outside of that there’s not many other truly notable matches. SBENU Sonicboom, Samsung Galaxy, and Anarchy all play two sets this week while KT Rolster, Najin e-mFire, and Jin Air Green Wings play one set so the schedule this week is fairly light on the stronger teams. Jin Air comes into this match hoping to prove they are a real contender in this league along with avenging their 3-0 loss to CJ Entus in the first round of the Champions Spring playoffs last split. CJ Entus comes into this match off a rough 2-0 set loss to SK Telecom which was my set of the week last week, that can be found here!

Entering this set, Jin Air sits at 4-2 in sets and 9-5 in their individual match record. The teams they have beaten are the bottom four teams in Champions: SBENU, LZ-IM, Anarchy, and Samsung. Teams that have a combined record of 4-19 in sets and 17-41 in individual matches. Jin Air has proven they are definitely a step up above those teams, but can they claim they are in the upper echelon of Korean teams? Thus far no, they have not proven that with a close 2-1 set loss to the KOO Tigers and a 2-0 stomp at the hands of KT Rolster. However, a win against CJ Entus could go a long ways to proving to everyone Jin Air is recovering from their disastrous 2-9 record in Spring after Cinderhulk entered the meta.

CJ Entus has had much more overall success than Jin Air thus far, taking down both KT Rolster and the KOO Tigers alongside SBENU and Anarchy. Their lone set loss is their most recent against SK Telecom. They stand at 4-1 in total sets and 8-5 in overall matches. Nearly the opposite of Jin Air, they have been a poster child of a positive Cinderhulk performance. Since the patch, CJ Entus is 19-8 overall, dropping only two sets, both to SK Telecom. They look to bounce back off a poor performance against SK Telecom by shooting Jin Air out of the sky.

Stat of the night tonight is that the last time Jin Air won a set against a team that had a positive record was CJ Entus back in Week 5 in the first round robin of Champions Spring. CJ Entus was 4-1 at the time of that match and their lone set loss was to the undefeated GE Tigers. Jin Air has shown they are at least a middle of the pack team, but can they get over the hump finally and contend?

Jin Air Green Wings

Yeon “TrAce” Chang-dong (여창동)

Lee “Chaser” Sang-hyun (이상현)

Park “Winged” Tae-jin (박태진)

Lee “GBM” Chang-seok (이창석)

Lee “Kuzan” Seong-hyeok (이성혁)

Na “Pilot” Woo-hyung (나우형)

Kang “Cpt Jack” Hyung-woo (강형우)

Lee “Sweet” Eun-teak (이은택)

Choi “Chei” Sun-ho (최선호)

Jin Air has one of the most interesting players in Korea playing top lane for them. Known for his extremely diverse, off meta top lane picks, Trace has been one of the top performers at his position for the Jin Air Stealths since Champions Summer 2013. Well rounded with a penchant for welcoming new picks to the meta, Trace has shown a breadth of champs in the top lane through his career, never being hindered by whatever meta dominated the position. Last split was no exception as he played 11 different champs over 32 matches, showing strong, consistent Morgana, Gnar, Rumble, and Maokai play. Thus far this split he’s toned down on the pocket picks he seems to have created for himself, focusing more on the main meta picks only playing Hecarim, Maokai, Rumble, and Gnar with Rumble being his most played at 9 games in 14 total matches. Historically one of his strongest champs, Rumble is the only champ he has lost on this split. Between Maokai, Gnar, and Hecarim, he is undefeated at 5-0 with an absolutely massive 21.7 total KDA at 18-3-47. Those four champs appear to be his strongest, however, one cannot discount what Trace has done in the past: breaking out surprise picks. Looking at his solo queue account, he’s played multiple top lane Olaf and Nautilus matches. Do not be surprised to see something off meta pop up.

Probably the best overall jungler in Korea at the moment, Chaser revitalized his own and his teams career after changing his name from RealFoxy prior to Champions Summer 2014. Helping lead the Stealths to a quarterfinal finish, many regarded Chaser as one of the strongest junglers in Korea outside of the Kakao, DanDy, and Spirit trio. With the extinction of sister teams, he shares the position on the team with Winged. Chaser has by and large been a fairly standard meta jungler his entire career. Known earlier in his career for his extremely poor gank timing and decision-making, he would constantly make poor dives resulting in negatives for his team. Toning that up through his career leads him to where he is now, at the top of the jungle food chain in Korea. While he was a leading cause of concern after the Cinderhulk meta hit, he has since appeared to shore up those issues, transitioning more to Gragas and Sejuani. All in all, Gragas, Rek’Sai, and Sejuani are his, and every other junglers, best picks right now.

In the mid lane, Jin Air is granted with two of the best talents in Korea, only bested by SK Telecom. Between the proven GBM and the highly touted Kuzan, whoever has played for Jin Air this split has shown some really strong play. GBM completely rose his career from the dead last split with some absolutely phenomenal play throughout. Prior to last split, GBM was widely known as a fairly talented and very smart mid that had absolutely horrendous champ pool problems. Whenever he got his Zed or Orianna, he made great things happen, but outside of those two champs he was completely lost. With Fly suddenly leaving prior to Champions Spring pre-season starting, GBM, who had left the organization as he no longer had a starting spot, came back on short notice. After a rough showing in pre-season that left many people feeling low on Jin Air, they picked their play up once the regular season started and GBM proved all of his doubters wrong in his individual play. This split, GBM has played six different champions in his ten total matches, showing some mixed results. Two surprising Yasuo picks have brought his normally high-KDA style performances down substantially overall, but taking that away he’s still shown impressive game play on Azir, Lulu, and, of course, his now signature Xerath. I would love to see him break out the masterful Orianna play, just to show he can keep depth in his champ pool.

Kuzan, on the other hand, is a mid laner brand new to the Champions scene. Picking up Kuzan from solo queue prior to Champions Spring, he was a no name player. Thus far, he’s played in four total games and is 4-0, going 2-0 against both SBENU and Samsung. The Samsung set is of note as Kuzan was brought in after Jin Air had lost the first match of the set. Entering the set, he put up two strong performances on Leblanc and Azir, the Azir one netting him MVP of the match. I’m very eager to see more of Kuzan. In his four matches, he’s netted by a 5.85 KDA over four different champs: Lissandra, Cassiopeia, Leblanc, and Azir.

At ADC, Jin Air has a bit of a debacle. They have the old veteran, former CJ Blaze ADC Cpt Jack, and up and coming star marksman Pilot. Last split, the two shared time with Pilot playing 20 of the 32 total matches and Cpt Jack playing the remaining 12. The best summary to describe their split is that Pilot performed much better on AD casters, Corki and Ezreal, while Cpt Jack performed better on more traditional AD carries, such as Sivir, Kalista, and Graves. Between Corki and Ezreal, in which Pilot played them 15 out of the 20 matches, he garnered a total 5.7 KDA at 90-31-86. Between Sivir, Kalista, and Graves, Cpt Jack garnered a total 6.3 KDA at 21-13-61. Overall this season, Pilot is 14-15 while Cpt Jack is 11-3. While quite a lot of people have praised Pilot as a positionally sound ADC, one who is really only getting better and better, Cpt Jack is still way up there in his performance. One of the issues I felt Jin Air had been their use of their ADC situation later in the Spring split when the tank meta was in full swing. Instead of playing Cpt Jack more often, an ADC that excels on more traditional marksmen, they kept playing Pilot who would default to his Corki and Ezreal, champs that have troubles against a full tank lineup. Overall this split, Pilot has expanded his pool adding in some Vayne play alongside Kalista, Urgot, and much better Sivir performances. It appears he is the rising star while Cpt Jack is the mentor. In the short term this move may not be of their best interest, but in the long term I am sure it will pay off.

Between Sweet and Chei, Jin Air has two fairly solid supports to choose from. Back in Spring, Chei played the majority of the season, performing in 29 of the 32 total matches. His performances were on and off throughout the split, in line with the teams overall performance. Janna and Annie were his go to picks through the split and he performed well on both, giving strong, consistent engages on Annie and showcasing very strong Janna play. Another thing that I felt gave him some overall trouble is not having a consistent laning partner due to the swapping between Cpt Jack and Pilot. This split, Chei and Sweet have shared the position, Chei playing five matches and Sweet playing nine matches. Both have shown excellent Nautilus and Alistar play, while sparingly playing other supports. Sweet in particular has garnered more than a few Bard bans and has shown some excellent Alistar games, going 3-12-53 over 5 games for a total 4.67 KDA.

CJ Entus

Park “Shy” Sang-myeon (박상면)

Kwon “Helper” Yeong-jae (권영재)

Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong (강찬용)

Kim “Trick” Gang-yun (김강윤)

Shin “CoCo” Jin-young (신진영)

Kwak “Bdd” Bo-seong (곽보성)

Seon “Space” Ho-san (선호산)

Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun (장용준)

Hong “Madlife” Min-gi (홍민기)

Jeong “Max” Jong-big (정종빈)

For more backstory on the CJ Entus players, see here.

Recently, Shy has been a Rumble and Maokai bot, getting one of the two picks in 11 of his past 13 matches. Despite the two losses to SK Telecom this past week, Shy displayed strong play throughout including this monstrous double kill in the second game, outplaying Marin and Bengi. On the split, Shy is 5-1 on his vaunted Rumble with a 4.46 total KDA at 22-13-26. Shy has historically stuck true to the meta of his position, rarely busting out more quirky picks. One pocket pick he does have, one that has been feared, is his smite Shyvana. In the Spring playoffs, Shy carried two matches on it, once against Jin Air in the first round, and once against SK Telecom in the first match of the set. With little answer, SK Telecom just banned the pick out the rest of the set. Expectations for the picks and bans pertaining to this position look to be Ryze bans throughout with the two trading off Maokai, Rumble, and possibly Gnar. Shy has been a poor Gnar player, unable to adapt to the pick earlier this season.

In the jungle, Ambition has been performing fairly decently. His Nunu, Sejuani, and Lee Sin play is all of note as this split he’s a combined 8-1 on them. 22-13-94 overall KDA between those puts him at an astounding 8.9 KDA. However, his other champs, Rek’Sai, Gragas, and Nidalee, have been less than impressive. Going 0-4 on those champs with a combined 4-20-10 overall, a terrible 0.7 KDA. Even dating back to last split, his best champs were Lee Sin and Nunu. On Nunu, he’s 10-1 on over the past two splits with an astounding 9.2 KDA with 80% Kill Participation. It is his best champion and I was shocked to see him not pick it up during the SK Telecom set, instead deferring to Sejuani and Nidalee.

Coco has been the star of this team the entire season. With a wide variety of champs at his disposal, he’s never backed into a corner. The meta has been in a position he’s comfortable with and his great synergy with Ambition, Coco gets ahead early and often, leading to him pressing leads and snowballing matches. While he had a rough set against SK Telecom by way of being dove over and over and over again, I still feel he’s the second best mid in the region. This split his two best champs have been Cassiopeia and Jayce, sitting at 4-0 combined on the two champs with a 10.75 KDA, 40-8-46. However, historically he’s shown phenomenal play on Kassadin, Leblanc, Ziggs, Ahri, Lux, Vladimir, and many more. Extremely well rounded player with a diverse pool. GBM and Kuzan will have their hands full with Coco.

The original construct of the cell that kept his partner, Madlife, imprisoned for so long, Space is no longer the gate keeper to greatness holding Madlife back. Last split Space saw a renaissance of sorts in his play, performing great all throughout the split. For the first time it actually appeared that he was being held back by Madlife. He had a new-found confidence in his play, more aggression being seen, putting opponents on their back foot. Whether this new style is purely a result of other top marksmen leaving Korea or not, at the end of the day Space played well last split. This split, he’s come down, but is still displaying fairly solid performances on Sivir, Vayne, and Jinx. His Jinx is the most noteworthy as it’s a champ he has trended towards while most every ADC in Korea moved against due to her immobility. The scuttlecrab Sivir is still probably his best overall champ. Over the past two splits, 16 total matches, he’s recorded a great 6.64 KDA at 76-28-110. It’s a champ he puts a lot of stock into and a champ he’ll take when available.

Madlife kicked 2015 off in a really poor note, starting the Spring split off to really horrendous performances. Since then, he’s gone away more peel focused champs and trended to more play making, engage champs. As such, his own individual performance has come back to respectable levels. In his past 25 matches, he’s played either Nautilus, Thresh, or Alistar 21 times. In that time, CJ is 17-8 overall. His Thresh in particular has come back to terrifying levels as he has been making play after play on the champ. Over the past 25 matches, he’s played Thresh nine times and averaged 1.4 kills, 2.3 deaths, and 11.2 assists per game, racking up a phenomenal 5.43 KDA.

Prediction

CJ Entus 2-1 Jin Air

I’ve been right on my past two set of the week predictions, but with this set not containing SK Telecom, who appear like a sure thing in Korea, this one is much tougher. Jin Air has utterly stomped all the lower competition while struggling mightily against the higher competition. CJ Entus hasn’t looked horribly convincing this whole split, but they’ve taken care of business against lower and higher competition. I look at the Jin Air roster and feel on an individual level they’re superior in almost every position sans mid lane, top lane being a toss up. However, Jin Air has not lived up to the seemingly strong line up they have right now. I do expect this set to be close if Jin Air keeps Ambition off his two main champs or if they have a solid counter plan in mind.

Match up to watch will be the top lane. Shy has been a steady player for CJ, showing up in almost every match even in losses against SK Telecom. Trace, on the other hand, has completely dominated the lower competition while floundering against both KOO and KT, the higher competition, putting up disappointing Rumble performances for an 8-16-18 total KDA in those five matches. If Trace can show up against CJ like he has against some of the lower competition, Jin Air has a very good chance at taking this set.