“Even things that are true can be proved.” 

- Oscar Wilde

Turn the clocks back five weeks and no one would dare predict SK Telecom T1 to be the winner of LCK Spring 2016. ROX Tigers had just defeated SKT 2/0 in an extremely one sided best of three and were considered the best team in the world by a large margin. Jump forward to just 2 weeks ago and SKT’s thorough 2/0 defeat at the hands of KT Rolster made the possibility of SKT winning the season ever smaller. Yet now I see many fans, pundits and commentators proclaiming SKT have a strong chance of winning the finals, some even going as far to predict an SKT victory.

So... why? What changed? By their own standards, SKT had an abysmal regular season. An overall 63% win rate saw them split evenly with 4 teams (Afreeca Freecs, Jin Air Green Wings, KT Rolster and Longzhu Gaming) and have a 1/4 overall record vs. ROX. In the regular season, SKT struggled vs. the teams that eventually made the playoffs and Longzhu, one of the most stacked rosters in Korea. On the face of it, when SKT didn’t have an overwhelming individual advantage they struggled to win games. While the necessity of this win condition is noticeably less present in the playoff games that have happened, you’d be hard pressed to argue that SKT have a man advantage over ROX in the same way as they do over JAG and KT.

Certain teams, typically the ones that enjoy a large fan following, have a reputation for ‘stepping up for the playoffs’. Something that SKT, Team SoloMid and Fnatic share is this, mostly deserved, reputation for ‘turning it on’ during the playoffs. It’s both exciting for the fans to watch, and allows said fans to remain hopeful and optimistic no matter badly the regular season goes. While I understand why this reputation exists for TSM and Fnatic, I almost feel the reason SKT have this reputation is by association due to a lot of similarities surrounding these teams. Now granted, fan bias means that fans will almost always predict their team to win, and these are the teams with the largest fan bases (partly due to their storied and lasting success) -- but a  factoid often thrown around regarding this final is:

‘SKT have never lost a final’

Firstly, this isn’t true: SKT reached the final of OGN: Masters in 2014 and were beaten 3/0 by Samsung Galaxy. SKT also reached the final of the 2014 Korean Regional Finals before losing to NaJin White Shield 3/1, a team that had just destroyed KT Bullets and KT Arrows in probably the most improbable and impressive runs ever. Secondly: SKT have won a lot of tournaments, but this isn’t because they have some sort of otherworldly ability to perform in the finals, it’s because they’re the greatest team in the history of League of Legends. I mean, obviously when you’ve won as many tournaments as SKT have, you’re going to have a pretty good win record in the final.

‘SKT have never won a tournament where they haven’t been the best team in the regular season or group stage’

This factoid of my own creation might be a little wordy but I believe it has merit when discussing SKT’s chances in the upcoming LCK final. In both LCK Summer 2013 and Winter 2014 SKT were the only team to not drop a game in both LCK group stages, two tournaments that they went on to go and win. In LCK Spring 2014 SKT managed a 3/3 record, losing 0/2 to KT Arrows in a surprise upset. What happens when they get to playoffs? They get dismantled and tossed aside by Samsung Ozone/White, the same team they obliterated 3 months prior. In LCK Summer 2014 it was the same story, losing 0/2 to Samsung Blue and then dropping a game to IM#1 before crashing out at the hands of SSW. Even at the 2013 World Championships and Allstars 2014, both tournaments that SKT won, they dominated the group stage before going on to win the whole tournament.

But what about LCK Spring 2015, where SKT came 2nd in the regular season but won the playoffs over ROX (then called GE Tigers)? First off, SKT were only one series behind GE and had them beat in the head-to-head record. Secondly, the first week loss to CJ Entus that put them behind GE in the end was partly (read: mostly) due to SKT repeatedly and disastrously first picking Xerath in an unstable meta. GE profited from getting a strong start to the weakest split Korea has ever seen, and while they might have come 1st in the standings, their back to back losses to KT and SKT and inability to adapt to the meta left a lot of concerns floating around the team. SKT didn’t lose a series in the second half of the split, a feat they’re still the only team to achieve.

History tells us that SKT are not a team that improves very quickly and ‘steps it up’ in time for playoffs; history actually tells us that SKT are a consistent team that generally stays at the same level for long periods of time excluding sudden drop offs. So far I see no reason to not assume ROX will comfortably win the upcoming final.

Jin Air Green Wings Foreshadowed Underlying Problems in SK Telecom T1

Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but when I predicted Jin Air Green Wings would defeat Afreeca Freecs in the Wildcard round of LCK Summer 2016 Playoffs I had my reasoning: First off, it was the first playoff series for the entire AFs roster and this traditionally causes players to play below their regular season level. Secondly, I believed that JAG had a man for man advantage in every lane except for the jungle. While Lira was a top three jungler in the regular season, JAG jungler, Winged, had something of a breakout season and had some incredible performances throughout the season. Yes, Winged’s consistency caused him to fall below Lira, but when he played his best, he was just was impressive as Lira. Thirdly, while AFs’s performance in the second half of the regular season was entertaining, I was never really convinced that this was a legit top five Korean team. I believed that AFs had benefited from a meta change and teams not understanding how to properly draft against them. Putting my faith in the JAG coaches, who’d I’d been overall impressed with throughout the season, I believed JAG wouldn’t fall prey to the same traps again.

Now while I did predict JAG to defeat AFs for the reasons stated above, I couldn’t imagine a world where they were able even have a realistic chance of taking a game off of SKT. Where JAG were strong, SKT were at the very least equal and where SKT were strong, JAG were pretty poor. I’m still amazed SKT managed to take a game, though the victory wasn’t very convincing from JAG’s perspective. But what were the potential underlying problems that SKT displayed in this series?

SKT played early skirmishes poorly and didn’t respect the double TP

In the first game at ~12mins Faker teleports to the toplane amidst a skirmish between the botlanes. Flashing forward and failing to land the stun, SKT find themselves inbetween towers and give up two kills thanks to reactive teleports from TrAce and Kuzan. In the fourth game at ~7mins, Faker uses Destiny towards the toplane in an attempt to gank TrAce’s Poppy. TrAce responds by landing the ultimate onto Faker as the gold card connects and whittles down Duke to the point where Kuzan can teleport in an secure the kill.

These type of mistakes from SKT are acceptable when facing JAG but ROX are a different beast entirely. With the strongest early game and fastest game time in Korea, ROX have shown that they are more than capable of snowballing these small advantages in a disgusting fashion.

       - Rather than making proactive plays, SKT thrived off of punishing mistakes

To follow on from this point: When SKT team fought on an equal footing, they generally struggled to carve out a sizable advantage. This series can pretty much be summarized as the following: JAG player gets caught out, SKT push the man advantage that is caused from the pick. JAG’s game two victory was possible because they were able to stall out the match and wait for a favourable late game teamfight. Aside from the fact that SKT failed to execute their team composition (which is worrying enough), SKT showed that without JAG making serious mistakes they were unable to win the game. The only seriously convincing win from SKT was game 3, in which JAG committed the cardinal sin of not picking a toplane tank in the current meta.

ROX don’t make this kind of mistake and they constantly execute exceptional tactical decisions with an incredibly narrow timing window. Waiting on ROX to make a mistake is like planning to get rich by buying $100 worth of lottery tickets every week.

Why did SK Telecom T1 Defeat KT Rolster?

After SKT’s victory over KT, fans and pundits were quick to praise SKT -- which, while healthy behaviour overall (celebrate success rather than berate failure), is intellectually dishonest. I’m not sure what happened behind the scenes for KT, but the team underperformed in this series. When a higher seed gets destroyed 0/3 to a team that played a full best of five the very day before, you know something went wrong.

      - KT consistently put Ssumday in a dis-favourable matchup, didn’t funnel him enough resources and then were without a true carry in their midgame and late game teamfights.

Since the start of 2015, KT has been Ssumday’s mostly bankable star player both in game and out of game. Having spent his entire childhood in KT’s practice room, Ssumday is an OGN Champion and consistently top player at his position who could walk into almost any team in the world. Yet in this series, KT set him up to fail from the start.

In the first game, SKT banned Ekko and Poppy and KT chose to ban Corki over Maokai (easily a top 3 toplane pick in the game). Their answer to the Maokai pick? A bizarre Fizz tank toplane pick which was pretty useless overall. While KT did manage to take down the midlane turret early on, Score choosing to not gank Ssumday’s lane meant the ‘counterpick’ fell slightly behind in the laning phase. Ssumday still manages to have a respectable game impact all things considered, but ultimately, SKT take the win.

While KT do first pick the Maokai in the second game, SKT’s risky Trundle pick goes completely unpunished by KT, allowing Duke to hard push the lane and claim a sizable advantage, even managing to turn around an inopportune gank from Score. Allowing a three man dive onto Ssumday, KT swap the midlane outer turret for the toplane outer turret, further enabling the Trundle splitpush.

The third game is really inexcusable. SKT first pick the Ekko, second rotation pick Trundle and then third rotation pick the Maokai, leaving Ssumday onto a less-than-ideal Nautilus. Score is then slow to react to an early gank from Blank’s Kindred, a pretty disastrous situation considering Maokai and Nautilus’s differing late games. Duke continues to push the toplane advantage, allow Blank another kill onto the Nautilus. While KT do attempt a three man collapse onto Duke at ~16mins, SKT out-rotate them and punish Corki’s lack of teleport as Fly farms in the botlane.

      - Score’s map pressure and teamfight presence, while not totally awful, was below his usual level and KT’s overreliance on Score was a major weak point was again exposed.

I have no problem saying that Score was the best jungler in Korea during the regular season, but he did have his occasional drop offs vs. elite teams (most memorably vs. JAG and AFs), which really exposed just how much KT rely on the veteran. Failing to execute a single toplane gank (something that is essential to KT’s win conditions), Score was caught out multiple times by Blank in the jungle and killed.

In direct contrast to Ssumday this series, KT did give Score ample priority that he would normally be able to carry with. Getting a comfort and priority pick in all three games, Score did nothing to pressure Blank and allowed the young jungler to run rampant over the map. Numerous mechanical shortcomings saw Score fail to execute ganks and provide the teamfight presence I’ve come to expect of him. Not for a lack of trying, but I don’t know if he landed a single Nidalee spear on Faker in the series. Score was a major factor in KT’s 2/0 over SKT in the regular season, but that player showed his face at the studio. Players, even 5 year pillars of Korean LoL such as Score, are allowed the occasional bad series, but it is rather frustrating when it might be his biggest series of the year.

Elsewhere on the map for KT, it was the same story for Fly, Arrow and Hachani. Arrow and Fly continued to be supporting acts for a team in desperate need of a front man -- and Hachani continued to be as useful as a fishing rod in the desert. At least this series might lead to KT Rolster making some long overdue changes, but that’s a topic for another time.

This series really said nothing about SKT’s true power level; I saw little evidence that they’d improved from their series vs. JAG, save a more slightly intelligent draft phase (though KT’s draft was legitimately awful). Even in game one, KT looked poised to make a comeback off the back of a strong teamfight until they split up and got picked off by SKT at around the 40 minute mark, thus further highlighting SKT’s teamfighting issues.

“It’s Over SK Telecom T1, I Have the Highground”

Gauntlet style playoffs are tough to run.  In the history of Korean LoL, only two teams have ever completed a gauntlet run and won three best of five series in a row: NaJin Sword in 2012 and NaJin White Shield in 2014. Other teams have given it a go, KT Bullets in 2013 and JAG in 2015, but had fallen short in the final. The gauntlet exposes you and protects your opponent in a way that no other format does; it is grueling and takes real character and resolve. If SKT do defeat ROX, then they would become the third team in the history of Korean LoL to run the gauntlet (I’ll elect to ignore the wildcard round since a gauntlet normally has three best-of series' anyway).

The advantage of ROX’s position is that we haven’t actually watched them play a game that mattered since the 23rd of March when they defeated CJ Entus 2/0 (since this is when they locked their first place seed). That means that on the day of the final, it will be 31 days since we actually saw ROX play a match that they had a reason to win other than pride. Not only have SKT had to play 2 additional best-of-fives in the playoffs, every regular season match was essential in their attempt to improve their playoff seeding. When you consider how innovative ROX have been throughout their existence, it’s almost guaranteed they will come into the playoffs with a few surprises.

It can’t be understated what a massive advantage ROX have coming into the finals. Just to clarify, I still would predict ROX to win even if the scales were even; but with the scales tipped this far in ROX’s favor? The concept of an SKT victory actually offends me.

Comprehensively Comparing ROX Tigers and SK Telecom T1

I’ve said it before: Smeb is the best player in the world right now. Smeb has that quality traditionally reserved where he can pick up any champion and play it to an unbelievable level. Smeb plays the trinity of toplane picks - Maokai, Poppy and Ekko - better than anyone and has demonstrated more pocket picks than any other player in the world in the last year. Smeb crushes lane, dominates teamfights and forces favourable duels like no other player in the world can. Combine that with a perfect use of teleport and his immaculate shotcalling, and you have an almost perfect player. You can waste three bans and your first pick on Smeb, he’ll still find a way to dominate the game. The amount of points that separate Smeb and the 2nd place on the MVP rankings for the regular season (Ssumday) is larger than any deficit in 2015.

Duke has been a strong toplaner throughout the season and probably had the best laning phase after Smeb -- but his teleports, teamfighting and itemization have been problematic and questionable at times. Duke is effective on his pool of champions, but he can’t hope to match Smeb’s sheer range and depth. Just to point out, Duke finished the season with significantly less MVP points than any other toplaner in the playoffs.

When I rewatched the regular season games between ROX and SKT, the other huge disparity was between Peanut and Blank. The problem with this matchup for SKT is that Blank and Peanut are actually very similar junglers, it’s just that Peanut is superior in every aspect. Peanut is also the ultimate wildcard on this team, ROX can win with or without Peanut’s early game domination (I mean, they were pretty good in 2015 with a warm body in the jungle). This puts teams into an interesting paradox: If you ignore Peanut, then he’ll run over the map and snowball either his lanes or himself to an insurmountable lead -- but if you focus Peanut, then you free up the rest of ROX. Also, while Peanut can walk into your jungle as much as he wants, you can’t go into his because of how quick ROX are to move around the map and collapse on out of position opponents.

Peanut’s mechanics, pathing, gank timings and team fighting are exceptional, but what makes Peanut special is his relentless aggression. Peanut only has one desire in life, and that is to fight; his playstyle reflects this philosophy. Blank might have improved a lot, but if he hasn’t actually improved from his series vs. JAG, then I think this series might be painful for SKT fans. As you’d expect from top junglers in this meta, both Peanut and Blank play all the meta picks including Kindred, Elise, Lee Sin, Nidalee, Graves and Gragas.

Where ROX Tigers are weakest, SKT are strongest. KurO is a well developed and capable player, but he is the only ROX player that’s not arguably top 5 at his position in the world. The 2015 LCK Spring finals -- which saw Easyhoon destroy his Azir with his Cassiopeia and then destroy him in the reverse match up -- hang over his head and are still used to downplay his achievements and individual level. Never mind that KurO actually stacked up really well against elite foreign midlaners at the 2015 World Championships, or that he’s improved his laning considerably since that disastrous match -- KurO was solo killed almost a full year ago and, therefore, is terrible. No other perceived terrible player has been as domestically and internationally successful, in fact, many players in KurO’s position have been celebrated and praised (Looper for example).

KurO’s champion pool is a little troublesome; he has a strange inability to play Azir, and with Viktor - his signature champion - nerfed recently. it’s difficult to say where he’ll go. He’s still an impressive LeBlanc player and he can, of course, play the other meta picks such as Lissandra, Twisted Fate, Ryze, Corki and Varus to a high standard. What keeps KurO relevant is his internationally celebrated team-fighting and roaming, a core philosophy of strength that all ROX players follow.

Luckily for KurO, Faker is not in prime form. Prone to bouts of enormous over-aggression, Faker has struggled to adapt to a jungler that isn’t a walking ward bot throughout the season. Faker has always been aggressive, but there seemed to be more calculation before; now it comes across more as pure rage. Faker is still the best midlaner in the world, but the dark lord has been weakened and finds himself mostly playing second fiddle to Bang.

Bang might be the best ADC in the game and the best player on SKT, but Pray is no slouch. The original great Korean ADC, Pray is the only player on ROX to win a series of LCK. Pray has proven he is invulnerable to meta shifts, having shown a high level of play on almost every single marksman throughout his career. Known as the greatest Corki player to ever play the game, Pray has recently become the most successful Ashe player in part due to its uniqueness as a pick in this meta. Like Bang, expect Pray to gravitate towards Kalista, Sivir and even the recently emerged Guinsoo’s Rageblade Tristana.

Credit where credit is due: Bang is a phenomenal player and easily the current best player on SKT. While the rest of SKT actually seem to flounder in teamfights, Bang plays them to perfection and really puts on an ADC master-class every game. If SKT had a more average ADC (Arrow for example) they’d probably be languishing close to the level of Samsung -- that’s how crucial Bang is to SKT.  I’ve long spoken about the ‘one-two punch’ of Faker and Bang’s partnership and how they’re reminiscent of Dade and Deft in 2014. When on an assassin, Faker will dive into the middle of the teamfight and soak as many cooldowns as possible while Bang skirts the edge and deals out a ridiculous amount of damage.

The old troupe that support players are underrated and under-credited might be a little tired -- but we have troupes for a reason. The problem is that, currently, the support position is probably the most limited and mindless it’s ever been. With Thresh nerfed to the status of situational pocket pick and caster supports buried six feet under, tank supports are left to rule the roost. Wolf is very much a journeyman support player (though can someone please get that kid to cut his nails) who has often been cited as the weak link of SKT. While I have to cite Blank these days, in seasons gone, this was certainly the case. Wolf’s pocket Tahm Kench is interesting, but Gorilla is the player that really made the world realize how stupid Tahm Kench was at the 2015 World Championships.

To speak more about Gorilla, there is a legitimate case to be made for Gorilla being the best player on ROX. One of the few players to have the Faker quality I spoke about earlier, you can be sure that whatever Gorilla plays, he’ll display a deep and intrinsic mastery of the champion. Gorilla pushes the level on whatever champion he plays, while simultaneously demonstrating perfect map movement. Gorilla also isn’t afraid to trust his own judgement and break out unorthodox picks in high pressure games, he is the player that single-handedly caused Janna to be the most picked champion at the 2014 World Championships, after all. If anyone’s going to be breaking out the Thresh in this series, rest assured it’ll be Gorilla with his deadly skillshot accuracy and spacial awareness.

Excluding some sort of colossal meltdown by ROX, I can’t really imagine a scenario where SKT is capable of defeating ROX in three games. SKT’s only realistic win condition is Faker and Bang controlling teamfights, which is highly unlikely considering the teamfighting issues I spoke of earlier. For the first time in the playoffs, SKT actually have a sizable disadvantage in individual talent across the board. Which, when you observe how much SKT have relied on this across the whole season, is problematic for the team. ROX have a much stronger early game, have deeper champion pools (midlane excluding), have better teamfighting and a broader tactical playbook. Combine those ingredients with ROX’s ‘highground advantage’ and you have a pretty one sided final tomorrow.

If you enjoy in-depth LCK coverage, give the author a follow on Twitter at @gosickboy_.

Images courtesy of OGN, ESL, DailyEsports, @aengdowha_pic, @_HTTPTTH_