Nearly two thirds of the way through the Summer split, we have a fairly clear picture on what the tiers of teams look like in Korea. We’ve the S tier, containing one single team in SK Telecom, the A tier, containing three teams that have shown the ability to hang at the top, the B tier, containing two teams that have shown an inability to have consistent top success, the C tier, containing three teams that struggle in nearly every facet of the game, yet show at least some promise, and the SBENU tier. Njut.

SK Telecom reigns supreme at the very top, sitting on a current 13 match win streak and are 21-1 in their past 22 BO3 or BO5 sets. They appear to be unstoppable, but like the KOO Tigers before them in Spring, it can all come crashing to a halt very quickly. Currently, this team is being carried by Faker. The greatest player to ever touch this game is having arguably the best split of his career. Despite not being statistically up to par with his absurd Winter 2013-2014 split, he’s still having one hell of a season. Out of every mid laner in Korea, he gets the second lowest percentage of his teams gold at 24.9%, yet he deals the highest percentage of his teams damage at 31.9%. This guy is a complete monster and carrying on a team that is one of the least mid focused in the region. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s just on another level from any other player.

Outside of the best player in the game being on their team, they have fairly average to above average players in other aspects. MaRin has been given more resources than any top laner not named Ssumday and has performed very well. I would struggle to put him in the top three of his position in Korea, but he’s performed well enough to not even be close to a hindrance. I do worry about how incredibly top focused SK Telecom is, but given how the meta itself is very dependent on getting the top lane rolling, I can’t blame them. Bengi’s play thus far has been a nice revival, however I still worry he’s not performing particularly well. I get the feeling he’s still very much along for the ride that MaRin and Faker bring him on and his contributions to the team still fall along the lines of “just don’t feed and play smart”. He hasn’t been 2014 Bengi which is about all this team is needing at the moment.

Bang has been a very solid ADC for SK Telecom. He brings in the absolute least amount of gold of any ADC in the region. The team is incredibly separated from his performance so whenever he does show up and perform above expectations, which happens quite often, it’s just a huge plus and gives the team a triple threat style that a lot of teams struggle to properly play with. He’s the cherry on top of the sundae. He’s also 20-1 on Corki this entire season so there’s that. Plays every top meta champs all at a sound level and is highly versatile. Lastly, his bot lane partner in Wolf has had a great split after performing poorly at the Mid-Season Invitational. He sports the highest KDA in the league at 8.2 and over the past 13 matches, all wins, he’s racked up an astounding 10.7 KDA, 12/15/149 over that span.

This is the best team in Korea and right now I would say they’re the best team in the world. This team is styling on everyone in Korea right now, hardly breaking a sweat.

A TIER

Quite a ways below SK Telecom sits three teams, the KOO Tigers, Jin Air Green Wings, and CJ Entus.

The KOO Tigers sit at number two for me. As of lately, this team has been firing on all cylinders. After an initial rocky start to the season, the meta shifted a ways away from the pure tank that Cinderhulk brought. Alongside the meta shift, something just clicked in this team that had been missing for more than a few weeks. Since week three began, they are 14-1 overall with seven straight set wins, including wins over Jin Air, CJ Entus, and KT Rolster. The two biggest factors I would attribute to this are Kuro individually stepping up into a much more defined carry role and their jungle situation evening out. Kuro’s own quality of play has definitely increased over the season and it’s kind of interesting to me that he’s had more of an impact on their team now whenever the meta is very low on mid lane impact. Currently side lanes dictate the pace and flow of the majority of the match. It’s a meta I feel he’s really good in and fits well in, being very independent from the rest of the team. I’m also very excited to see where he lands with on 5.13 with massive AP changes. He’s been a very versatile player throughout his career that can shift through nearly any meta seamlessly. I’m still extremely wary about their current jungle situation. Wisdom throughout his fairly short career has been extremely streaky and very momentum driven. In a less convoluted way of speaking, he can tilt. Hard. Thus far his performances have been very good with KOO and when Wisdom is on, he’s always been a spark. Back when he was on Incredible Miracle, when they won it was more or less upon him snowballing the game very hard and rolling with it. I hope he keeps on point because the one thing that can knock KOO back down is an unstable jungle position.

Jin Air sits at number three in Korea for me. This is a team that I feel is just on the cusp of being considered a true top tier team. They played SK Telecom closer than any other team in Korea only two weeks ago. They had their knife to the throat of CJ Entus and allowed them to live. If this team shores up these shortcomings I truly feel they could be an international contender. Problem here is that they’re still interchanging subs regularly. Kuzan, who I feel has a very bright future, has subbed in for GBM from time to time. Pilot, like Kuzan has a very bright future, has taken some time from Cpt Jack irregularly. Jin Air should be pressing for Worlds this split and GBM and Cpt Jack should be playing all the time to prepare properly for it. One of their biggest weaknesses is that they’ve really shied away from playing hard engage comps. They play the kite and poke comp better than anyone in the world, but for the life of them they cannot play engage comps. A lot of that seems to coincide with GBM’s pool of champs that aren’t highly aggressive. On the whole, despite their shortcomings, Jin Air is a definite contender in Korea and I feel if they shore up a few weaknesses and play with some more stability, could be a serious contender come Worlds. One of the biggest positives in Korea is that they have far and away the best jungler in the region, probably the only truly elite jungler in Chaser. Guy is on another level from every other jungler.

CJ Entus, unfortunately, is the number four team. I want this team to go away so badly. I want this team that is effectively Summer 2014 CJ Frost with its best player in Swift being replaced by Ambition to go away. I want it to die. It won’t though. They’re here to stay in the middle-top of the pack. When you think they’re good, they turn out to be bad. When you think they’re bad, they turn out to be good. They have the second hardest carry in the region on their team in CoCo. One of the people on Korea Talk said it best that CoCo’s career has more or less been “good, but not Faker” and it fits within this team. He’s just not been good enough to carry CJ to the very top. Lately, CJ appeared to be on a bit of a skid. It looked as if they would finally die off and allow Najin and KT Rolster to rise up, but they didn’t let it happen. They squeaked by Jin Air while using their top lane sub, Helper, and stayed relevant in the top half of the region. The team does have an uphill battle awaiting them. They have been wildly inflexible through the changing meta and peaked at Cinderhulk. It’s tough to imagine this team getting much better and seriously competing at the top unless a meta that really favors them and actively hinders others, a la Cinderhulk, swings along.

B TIER

Najin e-mFire is my number five team, just ahead of KT Rolster at number six. Najin is a mystery to me. We’re in a very top lane focused meta and they have the best top laner in the region, yet they’ve been so mediocre all season. They beat CJ Entus one week, lose to Jin Air the next, beat KT Rolster after that, then lose to KT Rolster, then lose in a close set to Jin Air. Incredibly inconsistent play coming out from them and it still stems from Watch and Ggoong. I’ve said it all season long, those two have to go if Najin wants to progress as a team. It’s just that simple, those two hold the keys to the kingdom back from Duke and Ohq, who are number one in their roles within the region. Maybe next year Najin management will wake up and make proactive roster moves so that the players that shine can shine brightly.

I place KT Rolster slightly below Najin, but I would say KT has higher upside with their current roster than Najin does. KT does one thing that Najin fails to do and that’s play around their top lane carry really well. Ssumday is having a truly break out split from an otherwise unmemorable career. Their acquisition of Piccaboo was a steal as I would peg him as a top two or three support in the region and he’s shown it thus far. The synergy from Xenics Storm is there between Piccaboo and Arrow. Edge moving into the mid lane over Nagne looks to be a plus, although we’ve seen little of Edge overall. Nagne was the definition of mediocre while Edge looks to be quite a bit more than that. Going down the stretch, it’ll be nice to see how he develops. I think both of these teams are pretty much done this season, but KT has a lot more growth potential. Najin has mandatory roster moves that must be made for progress while KT has already made some that look to create the progress they so desire.

C TIER

Anarchy is probably the best of the bunch here. Unlucky that they are a highly mid centric team in a side lane focused meta. Mickey and Lira have been the bright spots thus far, Mickey in particular standing toe to toe with every mid. From what I’ve heard, the players don’t take the team too seriously and their support staff is just Hachani.

Samsung beat Incredible Miracle both sets this split so they have proven their superiority over at least the gatekeepers of Champions. I’m convinced the team just isn’t very good anymore. Cuvee progressed from his initial awful first split, but is still one of the weakest tops in the league. Crown initially looked like a solid pick up, but has since regressed. Eve transitioned poorly with Cinderhulk. Their bot lane looks solid most of the time, but it’s not near enough to consistently win games. They’ll need to make sweeping changes to compete next year.

Incredible Miracle is still Frozen versus the world. They picked up Expession which is cool, but they’re still losing in the Korean Challenger league subbing in Lilac. I’m not sure what’s going on here, why Lilac is still playing. Bit unlucky. Najin Frozen anyone?

SBENU TIER

At least Sasin has looked alright?