The first era of SKT had been able to smash all three lanes, and abuse the fact that, simply put, Bae “Bengi” Seong-woong and Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong were smarter than their opponents to accelerate that into a win. The meta itself was shifting away from that being enough on its own (it’s not entirely a coincidence that SKT T1 K’s fall coincided closely with the universal adoption of teleport on top laners in early 2014), but in any case, that was not a luxury that 2015 SKT were going to be able to have. Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin had burned his bridges and left for North America, Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu and Gu “Imp” Seung-bin had gone to China, and both contemporaneously and in retrospect, the ADC talent pool in Korea was as poor as it had ever been.

Bang was coming off a decent, if unspectacular, 2014. He was a serviceable LCK-level ADC. He was never going to crush lane, but he was fine. Hence, we come to this very odd truth: from the very beginning, Bang’s role was written into SKT, simply because there was no-one else at the time. Ancient players like Seon “Space” Ho-san and Kang “Cpt Jack” Hyung-woo were still starting for top teams, and while PraY would go on to have a breakout split, nobody thought anything of him (or the rest of the GE Tigers) going into 2015.

As it happened, the first roster perfectly covered up for Bang. One of the truisms of League as a game is that if you have pressure in three lanes, you’ve already won; if you have pressure in two lanes, you’re in control. Faker was, as he would go on to be, still Faker; as derided as the Lee “Easyhoon” Ji-hoon era was, it would never have happened if not for the fact that Easyhoon could create even more pressure on certain champions.

The charge has been frequently levied against SKT that they would not be a fraction of the team that they are without Faker. While true, and particularly true in those cases where the system breaks down (the ability of Faker to single-handedly annul all early-game pressure across the map was one of the remarkable, and not-spoken-about, components of SKT’s playoff dead frog bounce last summer), it’s true more in the sense of his archetype as a player. Crown could not succeed where Faker has, but it’s possible that post-rookie Bdd could.

Even with that being the case, however, the second era of SKT crystallised in such a way as to make full use of Faker’s talents. Mid has pressure. Bot does not have pressure; where Bang has been seen as a relatively successful laner (such as in spring 2016), it’s been predicated on high-CC kill lanes rather than priority.

It needs hence be the case, to follow the truism, that top generally has to have pressure. SKT’s first top laner of the post-sister teams era? Jang “MaRin” Gyeong-hwan, at a time when he was either the best or the second-best (behind Lee “Duke” Ho-seong) top in the world by almost all estimations.

In their 2015 roster, SKT achieved what was — and arguably, still is — the modern manifestation of the “smash three lanes roster”. SKT can always play for two lanes. It may be harder to play for mid-bot than top-mid, but their players are always equipped on an intrinsic level to do it. It’s something that sounds very simple. It is very simple. Yet it’s been a huge part, on a very fundamental level, of the team’s success, and has enabled the team’s core to ride on for as long as it has.

The challenge since 2015 has been sustaining the situation in top lane. MaRin was a star talent, and perhaps the only SKT top laner of the era that was actually recognised for his positive impact while on the team. Duke was an equal to MaRin upon joining, but fell off a little over the course of summer. With Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon, and especially Park “Untara” Ui-jin and Park “Thal” Kwon-hyuk, the pressure stopped being a given, and started being something that shaped the early game towards its happening, rather than being something that could simply be played off.

And now, we’re here today. SKT finished Spring 2018 with a precisely .500 record — 23 game wins and losses, 9 match wins and losses. They scraped into playoffs, won a Bo3 against KSV, and lost summarily to KT in the next round. Nobody’s betting on SKT to bounce back anymore. So what now?