by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis
The first week of Korea’s professional circuit has completed and we can finally get back into professional LoL. Of course, one week isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but I think there are some good thoughts to take away from what we've seen so far. Keep in mind these are all just off of one series for most teams. This means what we've seen and what we get later on in the season might not match up. It’s also the first time a lot of these teams are working together since the merger and cutting out sister teams. There’s most likely a lot of work that still needs done.
KOREA IS THE FIRST REGION TO LEARN GNAR
Korea has always been known for being the dominant region overall, but they usually aren’t known for being the innovative ones or bringing out new metas. That’s usually reserved for EU or sometimes NA and then Korean players pick up and master it. We saw this with Ziggs, Maokai, and top lane Mundo for example. However this time, with the early start by Korea, they got the chance to be the pioneers. Gnar was almost always first pick or banned on red side.
You could even bring up the ESL tourneys and say that EU and NA had a chance to bring it out and couldn't. We saw Gnar being played by Balls, widely regarded as one of the best top laners in NA, and he was mediocre on it to say the least. Meanwhile, the Gnar that was seen during Week 1 ranged from pretty solid overall to extraordinary and was an example of why Gnar is so powerful. Granted his 33% win rate wasn't anything spectacular, but even the losses had some good plays involved.
The one win with Gnar in Smeb’s Game 2 from the GE vs IM series was absolutely spectacular. Not only was he able to win his lane pretty convincingly, but his late game team fighting and overall control of Gnar’s rage meter was impeccable. He was able to teleport at perfect times and control teams with his ults whenever needed. It’s safe to say that IM won’t be playing Gnar any time soon, and eventually he’s going to be permabanned as other pros learn to play him.
On a bit of a side note, it’s interesting to see that Korean players are more open than ever to trying new and innovative things. Wraith picked up not only a Lulu support, when she’s usually a flex mid or top pick, but a Syndra support as well. To be perfectly honest, the Syndra support - while not an optimal position for Syndra - didn't work out all too poorly for Samsung. The peel she had and ability to lower a tank that dove on the carry was pretty effective.
FAKER IS STILL GREAT, BUT CAN'T SOLO CARRY
One of the biggest things I saw was how teams were able to just shut Faker down. Barring his Game 3 vs. Najin, Faker didn't really accomplish much when he played. SKT won their series vs. Najin, but Faker went 1-1 overall. Also in the game he won, he had an early gank from Wolf (who ended up taking the MVP away from Faker who had a pentakill). He needed help getting ahead to become the monster he was always known to be. His Xerath was just not impactful and they even put him in a lane that was destined to lose, as well as giving him a champ that isn't really his playstyle. Easyhoon is outshining Faker on almost all aspects outside of assassin play, which is still only on the outskirts of coming into the meta.
Speaking of Wolf, he’s really shown to be one of the star players with Easyhoon on SKT. His roaming on Janna was top notch and he made his presence known all around the map in both controlling his champion and controlling vision. He almost single-handedly gave Faker his snowball in Game 3 vs IM. Also his Janna became ban worthy after that series which says a lot when you’d rather ban out a support than either mid laner SKT has.
Both Bengi and MaRin looked pretty good in the pre-season, but once they got into the regular season they had a noticeable drop in performance. Bengi just seemed to not know where to be exactly and MaRin lost a few lanes and didn't position his Rumble ults as well as he could have. Combine that with no response to the camping of Faker that CJ Entus pulled off in their second game against SKT and you’ll find a struggling SKT that seemed to pick up where they left off at the end of last season.
RIOT KEPT OUT OF OGN'S BROADCAST
When I saw that OGN would be broadcast for free on Riot’s stream, I was feeling both excited and worried. I was happy that finally the best region in League was going to be as well covered and open to the public as it always should have been, but I had reservations to how Riot would go about it. MonteCristo and DOA are known for their strikingly different style of casting. DOA cracks jokes about the game and talks about his support *insert carry champ* and Monte is very upfront and brutally honest in his analysis of teams play as well as Riot’s decisions in where they move the game.
My biggest fear was that they would try and tone down Monte and DOA in order to fall in line with what the NA and EU LCS casts were like. The recent news of them replacing the LPLEN stream didn't really inspire a lot of hope either. To my delight though, the OGN steam was left untouched. The only difference is where you go to watch the stream.
According to Monte, both he and DOA are still contracted to OGN and are not considered Riot employees. This gives them a bit more freedom in their ability to cast within their own style. Overall, I’m very happy to see that nothing noticeable is different on the Korean scene coverage.
CJ ENTUS IS MAKING A (bit of a) COMEBACK
Being a CJ fan, I remember seeing that they played SKT and thinking of how they’d most likely get rocked by Faker and Bang/Wolf. I was wonderfully surprised to see that all the players on CJ stepped up to the plate and really improved their play from the preseason. While overall the games themselves weren't exactly high quality in terms of strategy, CJ still looked much better than before.
SKT was making poor and cocky calls all throughout the series and CJ not only called them on it but came up with some great plays of their own. CoCo really shined this series and Shy also proved to be a very powerful and annoying Mundo. Even Ambition seemed to be getting more comfortable in his new jungle role.
One of the biggest and most surprising things for me though was watching Space. Space has always been known as the player that held CJ Frost back, that MadLife was stuck in “Space Prison.” This series, however, Space made plays. His Corki was just the right amount of ballsy in order to get in and get out without dying. To be honest, it seemed more like MadLife was holding Space back in the series as he was missing some pretty easy skillshots. His vision control was very aggressive though and he was able to get a few nice flash Flays in the second game on Thresh.
One thing I think CJ needs to work on is their pick/ban phase. They didn't ban Gnar in either game, and while MaRin didn't perform spectacularly in Game 1, the composition almost certainly should have left CJ reeling. Let’s look at the P/B phase for Game 1:
While I admire the Janna ban from CJ they left Gnar open first pick, which was immediately locked in by SKT. The Jarvan and Corki pickups were nice though. Now at this point, it should be noted that Easyhoon is playing mid and not Faker.
Easyhoon is known as a much more passive player and prefers mages rather than assassins. This becomes important when Xerath gets locked in. Xerath is all about poke, and CJ countered with Mundo and Braum, two beefy guys that can stop the poke. Once those were baited out, SKT locked in Lee Sin and Sivir for the massive engage from Annie, Gnar and Sivir which has almost no way of being stopped. CoCo locked in Jayce as a final pick, which didn't really put a lot of pressure on to Easyhoon in lane like you can with a blind pick Xerath.
Honestly, CJ got played hardcore in picks and bans. They left Gnar open and then fell for the thought of it being a poke comp with Xerath rather than taking a deeper look at the Annie and Gnar picks. Yes, SKT is very mid-centric, but they have other good players as well.
It was through some good objective control and some sloppy play by SKT that CJ could pull out the win in the first game. Shy got too tanky to deal with and literally could fight three people at once while his team mopped up the rest.
CONCLUSION
Overall, Week 1 of OGN brought a lot of interesting stories in ways I didn't expect. I knew that Gnar would be an insta pick/ban in every almost every game. I had also figured, as we got closer to the actual broadcast, that Riot was not going to do much to mess with Monte and DOA.
Seeing CJ wake up and SKT and Faker struggle was a bit of a surprise though. All of the unorthodox picks were really fresh from Korea as well. It’s shaping up to be an exciting split for OGN/LCK. Lots of new teams and strategies, old players, new players, and now a way to see it all for free!
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by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis
