League of Legends S7 World Championship Finals 2 Minute Preview: SSG vs SKT

SSG have had shown intelligence and strategic flexibility in their route to the World Championship finals. LZ and WE have been puzzles that SSG were able to solve by subtle adaptations to their core game plan of surviving laning phase and using smart lane assignments and rotations to win the mid and late game. SKT have at times looked lost in their series vs MSF and RNG, trying to adapt strategies used by other teams without truly finding their own style to play on this patch (except for hoping Faker can carry). For SSG this final is about finding a strategy to hide their main weakness this Worlds (mid/jungle synergy) against the best equipped team in the tournament to punish this weakness. For SKT, this final is about settling on a playstyle that defines what the team feels can win on the patch, whilst dealing with communication issues between jungle and side lanes. SSG must start as favourites for this series on the back of their strong performances and adaptations in knockout stages. However, SKT are SKT and tend to perform best in high pressure situations. SSG are a team against which Faker will be able to have a large impact early. The question is whether Faker can win the series before SSG begin to win side lanes and transfer their advantage to controlling mid.



SSG Summary

SSG's main weakness at worlds has been Crown's early laning phase. This has hurt Ambition's jungle pathing options early and made SSG particularly vulnerable to top side engages in groups stages (when bot lane was giving up free bot push due to Relic Shield ADC starts). The team has adapted in knockout stage by looking to contest bot lane push early, freeing up Corejj to roam mid and swing the 2v2 matchup, and SSG have looked much stronger as a result. Cuvee has quietly been excellent, winning or neutralising top lane even in unfavourable matchups, and this has forced teams to focus top, drawing pressure away from mid lane, or forcing teams to face potential roams to mid from top lane. Varus is a key pick for SSG, and might see bans in this series. It gives early lane pressure to bot lane, and wins with most supports in the post-laning phase 3-1-1.



Against LZ, SSG's game plan was to focus heavily on engage from mid lane. Rather than forcing Crown onto champions which could contest mid push (with the exception of one game on Taliyah) Crown was put on Lissandra and Malzahar, champions which naturally concede mid pressure early, but have teleport to brute force rotations if the enemy mid laner gets the push and rotates to side lane first. These are also champions with strong early-mid game spikes that can force engages. SSG gave up top pressure to Khan, and relied on controlling his split pressure with hard engage threat on his team from mid. Knowing that even if Khan got ahead SSG could still control this threat, Cuvee was able to rotate/tp aggressively for bot side plays. Rather than fighting LZ in lanes, where they are strongest, SSG put the responsibility to counter top lane on mid and responsibility for winning bot lane on their top laner. LZ had no answer for this.



Against WE, SSG's plan was to neutralise early game and win with better mid game power spikes and rotations. WE are a team who prefer to draft either for early game or late game team fighting. In game 2, SSG were able to punish WE's early aggression (2m/15m) and prolong the game until they hit their power spikes. In game 3/4, WE drafted heavily for late game, but 2 compositions which had large early game power troughs and relied on getting early game leads to be effective. SSG kept even during laning phase by playing extremely safe and conceding cs around WE's areas of strength to stop them snowballing, then used soft split push pressure for rotations in the 3-1-1 to strangle their opponents out of the game. Varus priority in particular ensured a large 1 item power spike that meant that SSG had a point of power (and engage) to group around as soon as laning phase ended.



SKT Summary

SKT's main weakness at worlds has been extremely poor synergy between jungle and side lanes. Although Huni has been able to get pressure in favourable matchups, his rotations into enemy jungle for early game deep vision have been badly timed due to poor communication/coordination with his jungle. This has often meant these early leads have been wasted and Peanut has lacked backup at key times vs aggressive invades. Although Bang/Wolf have occasionally been drafted winning matchups, Bang has looked poor at this tournament, and Wolf has rarely been able to roam to make up for top/jungle problems (even with pressure) as a result. Notably in g5 vs RNG, SKT ceded complete control over bot lane despite in theory having a favourable Caitlyn vs Tristana matchup. Faker has generally been excellent, but in games where he has underperformed (RNG G3 vs Xiaohu's Ryze, MSF G1 vs Ignar's Blitzcrank) SKT have looked lost. Teams that have been able to get leads in jungle or side lanes and snowball this to mid (or just ignore mid and play the 3-1-1) have done well vs SKT at this tournament. SSG have proven adept at using this style to win games. However, Faker will almost certainly be able to get early pressure against Crown, and will look to transfer this pressure into enemy jungle (providing Blank/Peanut the backup they often lack).



Against MSF, SKT struggled to adapt to MSF's unconventional gameplan. Realising that Ignar's engage threat was the key to their success MSF aggressively de-prioritise non-Taric ardent censor supports and took heavy engage from bot lane in the shape of Blitzcrank and Leona, moving ardent responsibility to mid (Karma) and jungle (Ivern). The key game in this series was game 5, MSF had an awful reset early which conceded mid tier 1 for free and stopped them being able to take any aggressive action for fear of Tahm Kench flank. SKT in turn had 2 poor resets to hand 2 inferno dragons over to MSF. However, despite playing aggressively for the whole series, MSF were unable to pull the trigger on 70/30 barons, refusing to risk a potential steal, and eventually ended up losing the game on a 50/50 smite at Elder Dragon. Although Ignar had an excellent series, his poor positioning and death in mid lane before the dragon forced MSF into making an aggressive move. SKT were not really able to adapt in this series to MSF gameplan. G1 and G4 MSF made multiple execution mistakes to hand over the game, G5 they did not play aggressively enough around baron to secure the series.



Against RNG, SKT had similar success punishing individual enemy mistakes, the most obvious being a pick on an extremely out of position mlxg in g5 to close the series. The interesting point is in how SKT are manoeuvring themselves into situations to force these mistakes. Firstly, SKT are extremely decisive in their use of side lane minion wave control. Although Huni has not been flawless, often over-pushing and getting caught by enemy rotations mid-late, SKT are extremely decisive in using his pressure to force around baron, either sacrificing Huni for an advantage, or using slow pushes and minion wave bounces to get leads or baron vision control. Their preferred compositions are often engage heavy and this means that the team (in particular Faker/Wolf) have been able to punish lapses in vision to help SKT come back even from large deficits. The key difference in mid-late game styles is in how the two teams contest vision: SSG generally have perfected a standard approach and look to transfer lane pressure -> deep vision denial. SKT use the threat of side wave minion slow push/bounce to deny cs (or force response, then use numerical advantage to immediately contest baron control). Unlike SSG, SKT will hold side lane freezes and mainly look to push after team resets give a favourable opportunity to contest deep vision or baron control. SSG mainly push and rotate immediately.

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