Spotlight on Korean teams competing at Worlds

Korea will look to make it four titles in a row at the World Championships when they send three teams to the tournament this year. ROX and SKT are among the favourites to win, with Samsung being an interesting dark horse.

Let’s take a look at the three teams:

 

ROX

 

It took a miracle 2 HP Baron Steal from Smeb’s Gangplank, but the ROX Tigers finally took the title of Summer Split champions with a Game 5 victory over KT Rolster in Korea’s LCK.

Coming in as the #1 seed from Korea, expectations are astronomical for a team that’s composed of formerly benched and retired players who at one point were unable to acquire a single sponsor.

The Tigers enter Worlds as one of the favourites to win, and their Group draw has done nothing to dissuade that opinion. The others in Group A with ROX include Europe’s G2, North America’s Counter Logic Gaming and International Wildcard Albus NoX Luna. While G2 certainly could put up a fight, many experts agree that with CLG’s poor form of late, ROX should have no issues winning the group.

With League of Legends’ best player right now in Smeb manning the Top lane, the ROX Tigers will be looking to improve on their second place finish at the last Worlds by going one step further this time.

 

SKT

 

Reigning World Champions SK Telecom T1 approach this year’s Worlds with more question marks than ever before. While Faker has stayed consistent as one of the best players in the world over the last 3-4 years, SKT now face a glaring problem with one of their roles for the first time. Blank and Bengi, the latter a sixth member of the team who plays regularly, split time in the Jungle during the Summer Split, but both have been the obvious weakness for SKT. How they resolve this will determine their success.

SKT should have an easy time getting out of the Group Stage, but for a team that have won two of the last three World Championships, Blank and Bengi’s performances (or lack thereof) have been alarming.

In all likelihood, SKT’s success will continue to hinge on the biggest name in the history of League of Legends: Faker. Faker is one of the few players who can single-handedly carry a team deep into an international tournament. If SKT want to repeat as champions, Faker will once again have to ascend to the level of not only the best player in Korea, but the best player in the world.

 

Samsung

 

With surprise move after surprise move, Samsung Galaxy fought tooth and nail to qualify as the third team representing Korea in the 2016 World Championships.

After losing Game 1 of a gauntlet best-of-five series against afreeca, Samsung benched their shot caller Wraith and put in ADC turned Support CoreJJ, a player who had had only a handful of competitive Support games to his name. Shockingly, Samsung proceeded to win three games in a row to set up a do-or-die best-of-five clash against KT Rolster for the final spot at Worlds. On the back of CoreJJ’s incredible Support play, a stunning Skarner pick in Game 4 and an MVP calibre performance from Mid laner Crown, Samsung ended up defeating KT 3-2 and punching their ticket.

Samsung have a real shot of getting out of the Group Stage, joining North America’s Team SoloMid, China’s Royal Never Give Up and Europe’s Splyce in Group D. While TSM look to be the favourites, the second berth appears up for grabs. With their new-found form based around CoreJJ’s shot calling and Crown’s supremacy in the Mid lane, Samsung might just be the favourites to qualify from the group as the second seed.

Overall Korea faces a spirited challenge this year from not only the top Chinese team, EDG, but also North America’s TSM and Europe’s G2. Consequently, season 6 shapes up as the most difficult road to the finals to date for the Korean teams.