(Photo credit @Nublarse)

Colin Kenitz (3-27-2016)

The Rox Tigers have been Dominating the LCK’s Spring split in 2016. With only two more weeks of the regular season, We’re heading into the Spring play offs. Furthermore, the Mid Season Invitational in Shanghai is just over a month away. Here’s a look at the key to the Tiger’s success and why they’re the scariest team in the world right now.

The Tigers have gone 14 – 1 in best of three sets so far this season and they’re 29 – 5 in total game score. They’ve got the shortest average game time in the league at 32.7 minutes, sitting below the next closest team, SK Telecom T1 by over four minutes. Their team’s total K:D ratio is 1.82, which is far ahead of the next closest team, the Jin Air Green Wings at 1.36. Okay, sure, the numbers are impressive, but what do they mean? This is how the Rox Tigers have dominated the LCK’s Spring split so far.

Their roster is the most obvious point. It has never happened that a team had the best player in the world at each role on their roster. This includes every world championship team. That being said, as of right now, it can almost be said for the Rox Tigers. At least, that each player could make a contentious argument for best or top two in the LCK, which is the strongest region in the world. Despite this, though, one can’t throw together an all star roster and just make things work. For the Tigers, their true success comes from two things: the fact that they know their play style, and that they’ve got a shiny new weapon.

(Photo credit @Nublarse)

Firstly, the Rox Tigers have found their way to play. Their ability to skirmish in the early and mid game often provides them with a sturdy foothold into which they can transition into the late game. Their use of the double teleport on Kuro and Smeb has been near immaculate this season, which allows them to take these skirmishes where they outnumber their opponent. Even leaving their lanes open with these teleports, the Tigers can almost always manage to take a stronger objective trade over their opponents following these successful skirmishes. Even while going even in trading kills, they will find their way to chip out towers harder, steal more buffs, and control the minions to apply superior pressure across the map.

Their player’s ability to win all three lanes, combined with this skirmishing power has lead them to have an average gold lead of 1,451 by fifteen minutes. Their capability to then propel this gold lead into one much greater is astounding. There are many times when the Tigers hold little more than a two thousand gold lead by twenty minutes. All it takes is one dragon fight or one baron fight and they can break the game open entirely. Their spacing and ability to kite and manipulate terrain with their double teleports can force their opponents into devastating traps. It truly looks as if they play two steps ahead of everyone else.

What about that shiny new weapon I mentioned? It’s their only substitute on the roster going into the 2016 season. Yoon “Peanut” Wang-ho has a symbiotic relationship with his team more so than many other single players. His team is incredibly strong, as we saw in 2015 when they made it all the way to the World Championship Finals without him. However, Peanut is very strong in his own right. It’s very rare that a single player being implanted into a team can change them as much as the Tigers have changed. Hojin’s (aka Lee’s) replacement has taken this team to a whole new level. Peanut’s aggression and jungle pathing really took the Rox Tigers to the next level. Although their success as of now looks comparable to last year on paper, it couldn’t be more apparent when you actually watch them now with Peanut as compared to Hojin.

(Photo credit @Luna_pictures)

Peanut has been more than impressive on aggressive early junglers. He’s been god like. Literally. When the team can find him on a winning match up early through the draft phase, the enemy jungler isn’t going to have a good time. Last year we saw glimpses of the rookie jungler while he was on Najin e-mFire during most of 2015. He looked promising, but that was really the best that could be surmised. Now, he has been completely dismantling his opponents. In the most recent series against Sbenu Sonic Boom, Peanut denied every buff in an entire game against Flawless. Ironic?

To put his success into tangible evidence, you won’t have to look far beyond his stats for the season. His Elise has a 100 percent win rate at ten wins in ten games with a 7.56 KDA, and his Nidalee is right behind it at six for six and an astounding 11.33 KDA. His Kindred is just a step behind at 8/9 with a 6.05 KDA. Peanut currently has a split total 6.4 KDA, which is the highest amongst the LCK’s junglers, and a full 1.1 ahead of the next closest, Winged. It’s also nearly three points above the league’s average KDA for junglers, which is 3.6. Oh, and it’s also fifth overall in the whole league. His kill participation is 75.3 percent; second behind only Score as far as junglers go and ninth overall in the LCK. Yeah, he’s that good.

(Photo credit @Luna_pictures)

Having such a stellar performance on a team that also has the likes of Smeb, Kuro, GorillA and PraY spells no less than 14 -1 and a significant first place lead for the Spring split thus far. He does maintain the second highest MVP points on his team right now at 800, where he’s been hovering in and out of fifth place over the season. His teammate Smeb has his number though, holding 1100 MVP, which is the highest in the league. These numbers may be mostly for fun, but they’re actually an accurate way of summarizing a player’s importance in each game. The MVP votes come from the OGN casters, observers, and other production members immediately after each game.

To sum up all of their skill and their success, the Rox Tigers are a team that have a lot of fun playing with each other. This is a team that, going into the season, lost their major sponsors, and ended up changing their name to Rox. Because, of course, they have a friendship that’s sturdy like rocks. It’s the team that made it to the Final match of the World Championship last year and lost to SKT T1 with beaming smiles on their face as the crowd chanted their name the whole time. When you watch their players cams, they’re almost always smiling and laughing. The players will always attribute their success to working well as a team in each MVP interview. Finally, NoFe has been an exceptional coach for this team. His draft phase is very strong, especially how he utilizes flex picks like Graves and Nautilus. He’s been with the team since last year, and the team has had several consecutive successful seasons in a row.

While the Tigers fell down hard on the international stage at IEM early last year. This year things will be different. Despite the fact that they are in the same first place now as they were last season, their success was not of the caliber of 2016. Simply, the Rox Tigers are not what they once were, and they have learned well from their past mistakes. They are playing a game of League of Legends that is far ahead of their opponents right now, even whilst being in the LCK. Truly, if they can maintain this form they will continue to be in an echelon of their own. If they can keep up their current level, or even climb higher,they are strong favorites to win the Spring playoffs, as well, to move onto win MSI.

(Photo credit @Nublarse)

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