PraY: foremost proponent of the Blue Ezreal and TP Ezreal.

GorillA: popularised the Miss Fortune support as a counter to Zyra in the bottom lane. Three LCK titles as a duo, including from the time when they were in ROX Tigers. Zero premiere international titles. Kingzone DragonX’s recent loss at the hands of China’s Royal Never Give Up at the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational has once again sparked the discussion of whether the long-time duo of Kim “PraY”Jong-in and Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon are somehow ‘chokers’ internationally. It is difficult to ignore the statistics; for every first placement they’ve accomplished with their teams, they’ve also fallen at the final stage twice over. There is no doubting the strength of this bot lane, especially given the fact that they play with Kim “Khan” Dong-ha, a top laner who demands resources and pushes his lane incessantly, almost necessitating that both the jungler and mid laner Gwak “Bdd” Bo-seong play around the top side of the map. In the absence of any support from those areas, PraY and GorillA have taken to playing more defensively, withstanding barrages of attacks from opponents. The most impressive aspect of this duo is their resilience in the face of such disparaging circumstances, and at both the LCK finals and MSI, PraY was given opportunities to shine, putting up huge carry performances at times on the likes of Kai’Sa and Ezreal. Unfortunately, RNG simply had a better grasp of the meta at MSI, and PraY’s direct bot lane opponent, Jian “Uzi” Zihao - also in search of his first international title - was nigh-unbeatable at MSI; while PraY was averaging 10 CS a minute, Uzi was averaging 15. This led PraY to quip that Uzi was taking all the CS from his next game too. Given these circumstances, it would be natural for one to assume that Kingzone do not have the bottle for international events, having also crashed out of Worlds 2017 at the quarter-final stage at the hands of Samsung. While RNG and Invictus Gaming are considered among the best teams in the world at present, Kingzone are still at least top 3 and it would be unwise to count them out at Worlds. The LCK is currently facing a sort of crisis: aside from Kingzone, the top teams struggled to assert themselves this past Spring and are looking far from their best coming into Summer. While SKT as an organization are known for their resilience and Gen.G tend to step their game up internationally rather than domestically, these are but narratives which serve merely as inductive evidence; just because they have done well after suffering defeats before does not mean it will keep on happening. At the same time, KZ are rightly still the top contenders for the summer split, international defeats or not. Presently, it would take a significant level-up from rivals to challenge KZ. Yet we cannot fall into the trap of seeing KZ’s success domestically and assume they will win it all at Worlds now, since Korea, while arguably still a competitive region, has lost much of the competitiveness that typified its teams since the move to the LCK, for several reasons: notwithstanding the gauntlet-style play-offs the teams have to go through, leading to Kingzone only playing one Best of 5 series in each of the titles they won. The most competitive region right now might in fact be the LPL, with a burgeoning number of teams, both stalwarts and up-and-comers and more importantly, has a competitive play-off format -- which, along with the massive number of games LPL teams play, means they may well equal or surpass Korea in terms of titles sooner rather than later. To answer the question of whether Kingzone can still win Worlds in the face of Chinese opposition, especially when RNG have never looked better, is rather premature. A difficulty in assessing a team that far ahead is the ever-changing nature of the game; with patches coming in thick and fast, what is in vogue and might play to KZ’s strengths right now might change drastically by the time of the Worlds patch. Within a region often touted the best in the world, however, KZ are still favourites -- yet the reactions of the other Korean teams will be crucial, for Kingzone require a level up, especially in terms of adaptation over the course of a series, if they wish to hoist the Worlds trophy at the end of the year. So too will PraY and GorillA - more in a mental sense - for it will be on them, as the most experienced members of the team, to keep heads cool. It was PraY who arguably fell at a crucial moment at the MSI finals; The question of whether Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan should be starting more games over Han “Peanut” Wang-ho is also one that KZ will have to confront, at least in the first weeks as Peanut joins the Korean squad in Hong Kong at the Asian Games qualifiers. The team has been practicing with Cuzz over the past week and this is the fledgling jungler’s chance to stake a claim on a starting role. While MSI ended with a 1-2 record for Cuzz, there may be a use for him in certain compositions. We will get a sneak preview of whether Korea as a unit can withstand the Chinese barrage at Rift Rivals in July; in many ways, MSI has already started the Chinese hype train and it will be up to Kingzone and co. to derail it before they end up losing their foothold.

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