The last time I wrote a long article predicting SK Telecom T1 to lose a major final, I got pretty badly burnt. In case you missed it, I wrote 4,100 words discussing why I believed ROX Tigers would beat SKT in the LCK Spring Final. Turns out ROX lost 1 - 3, and Twitter had a field day.

Last week, SKT narrowly defeated ROX in a best of 5 semifinal that saw the world truly appreciate high level Korean League of Legends. I can’t help but feel that in writing this article, I’m setting myself up for Twitter field. But when I honestly believe something with every fibre of my being, I can’t help but shout about it. Writing this article didn’t feel like much of a choice, it felt like something I just had to do.

My expectations for Samsung Galaxy were actually fairly reserved coming into this tournament. Yes I predicted them to top their group, but I was wary of their ability to perform against top tier foreign teams. Their gauntlet form was impressive, but I’d been burnt before by an even more impressive gauntlet run. NaJin White Shield went 9 - 1 in 2014 and looked like a contender to win Worlds until the tournament began. Their 0 - 3 defeat to OMG is one of the most humiliating defeats a Korean team has ever faced.

What separates SSG and NJS is that SSG didn’t just maintain their gauntlet form, they surpassed it and evolved into my actual pick to win the tournament. The most dominant group stage performance combined with a 9 game win streak and the highest winrate in the tournament should have even the most hardcore SKT fan worried.

Shrouded in Mystery

The truth is, Samsung were lucky to get the bracket draw they did. Not only did they manage to avoid a Korean team until the final, but they also dodged the elite Chinese teams. Facing nothing but ailing and one dimensional Western teams that rely on laning phases, SSG could effortlessly waltz into the final.

On the other hand, ROX pushed SKT to their absolute limits and revealed many cracks in the SKT armour. SKT will come into this series with a few new tricks, but they don’t really know anything about SSG. In high level Korean Esports, the ability to scout and prepare counter strategies is essential.

Since the started seriously using CoreJJ, Samsung have shown their ability to produce surprise picks that can go on to heavily influence the meta. Ambition’s jungle Skarner was essential in helping SSG overcome KT in the gauntlet, and CoreJJ’s support Zyra pick has gone on to become such a huge part of the meta that she gave way to a high profile gimmicky counterpick. SSG will continue this trend and come into the finals with a few new surprise picks that they’ve yet to show.

What are SSG’s weaknesses exactly? They haven’t lost a game with CoreJJ since Worlds began. It’s not that SSG are a team without weakness, it’s just that no one’s really tested SSG since they defeated KT Rolster nearly 8 weeks ago. Just how deep does the SSG rabbit hole really go?

By contrast, SKT are an open book. RNG’s first game win over SKT was the only legitimate foreign vs. Korean BO5 game loss, and ROX showed the world that this year’s SKT can more than just bleed. Yes, SKT’s play with Bengi is noticeably improved, but there is a serious reason why the coaches keep wanting to use Blank. ROX couldn’t figure out Bengi’s key weakness, but SSG can.

To make matters worse, SSG exclusively scrimmed with ROX for their semi finals preparation -- this is evident by both teams having the Ashe and Miss Fortune picks prepared -- meaning SKT haven’t even managed to scrim Samsung for a long time. Looking at SKT’s group stage picks; it’s entirely possible they were the only Korean team to not know about the Zyra support pick until after the group stage -- both ROX and SSG picked it in the group stage a fair amount. Just how badly did ROX and SSG shut out SKT?

It’s Simple: We Kill the Faker

A large part of why SKT struggled in 2014 was just how high the midlane level was in Korea at that time. Unable to dominate his top tier counterparts, Faker often found himself unable to push his team over the finish line. Faker had finally come face to face with an S tier midlaner after he successfully redefined what that classification meant. Faker was still the best, but the gap between him and his rivals wasn’t so large that he could win without his team’s support.

Why do you think CJ Entus in 2015 Spring almost had SKT dead to rights despite having an inferior roster? Because Coco was able to go blow for blow with Faker at every stage in the series. Heck, even Flash Wolves’ BO1 victory in this year’s Worlds was largely in part due to Maple, the best foreign midlaner, and his ability to stack up to Faker. Unluckily for SKT, Samsung have the second best midlaner in the world waiting in the ranks.

In total damage percentage, damage to enemy champions and percentage share of team’s gold, Faker and Crown are impossible to separate. Considering the difference in the levels of opponents they’ve faced, comparing any other states would be disingenuous. But when we compare how they actually function within their respective teams, they’re virtually indistinguishable. Both of them, for better or worse, are the primary carries of their respective teams.

Crown had an impressive domestic 2016 overall, but his performance in the World Championship has been on another level. Excluding the first game SSG went with Wraith -- despite all the evidence suggesting that CoreJJ is the significantly better support for SSG -- Crown has conquered every foreign midlaner he’s been put up against. This is the first S tier midlaner that Faker will face at a World Championship, and Crown will go toe-to-toe with Faker every step of the way. Faker’s midlane champion pool is deeper, but Crown can play all the meta picks to a high level and then some.

The Biggest Gap: Duke vs. CuVee

CuVee is a real rags-to-riches storyline. The only surviving starting player of the revamped SSG lineup that debuted in late 2014, CuVee has gone from being a role player on an awful team to a carry on a world class team. Duke, on the other hand, is a player that’s really failed to live up to his promise.

When Duke started to hit his form in 2014, he was the best laning toplaner in the world. Winning the regular season MVP in Spring 2015 despite his team finishing 6th overall, many fans were excited to see Duke on an elite team. Yet when it finally came, it’s largely been uninspiring. Regressing to a role playing tank, Duke’s performance on carry champions has never been where it needs to be.

CuVee will be a nightmare for SKT to deal with. Not only is his effective champion pool larger than Duke’s, but he’s also likely to solo kill Duke without significant jungle pressure from SKT. Yet, this draws Bengi away from his beloved Faker and is far from guaranteeing a kill, as CuVee has shown a masterful ability to soak up jungle pressure and stay relevant. CuVee’s Kennen, Jayce and Rumble are always a threat, but his ability to perform on damage soaking tanks such as Ekko, Gnar and Poppy is on the same level as Duke. If there was an individual mismatch in this matchup, then this would be it. CuVee manages to have 2014 Acorn’s large champion pool and teamfighting mixed with Looper’s map movement and mechanics. Yet he carries more games, makes more high impact plays and has more solo kills than both of them combined.

It is ironic that the biggest mismatch in this game is between SKT’s newest player and Samsung’s most veteran presence, especially when you consider where they were at the end of 2014.

It’s Taken a Long Time

Many words can be used to describe Ambition’s play throughout his extremely long career, but you’d never be able to say he was stupid. Ambition is a career veteran who steps up in high impact games and understands the game on a level that most people can only dream of. A lot of Ambition’s failings have really come from his arrogance and tendency to be pretty lazy in game. When Ambition was a midlaner, he seemed to hold onto this belief that he was far better than his opponent and had it blow up in his face multiple times.

While I was very reserved to of Ambition in the jungle, I always understood why he might think it would work. Yes, it took him a while to truly understand his new role and stop playing like a midlaner playing his off role in solo queue, but Ambition finally seems to have found the form he kept telling us exists. No one really believed that Ambition could ever become a truly world class jungler, but that didn’t mean he had nothing to offer a team. I speculate that a large part of why SSG play better with CoreJJ over Wraith is that Ambition has no one to negatively clash with and challenge his command anymore.

While Ambition always had a few champions he could do really well on, he actually now has an effective pool he can rotate through. And, as you’d expect from a player of his intellect, his jungle pathing, gank timings and vision sensibility are as good as any.

Ambition is a player with no true in game weakness, but his actual strengths lie outside of the game. He certainly won’t crumble under pressure or get fatigued like Peanut did in his bo5 vs. SKT. I wouldn’t say this is a point of serious advantage for SSG like toplane, but it certainly isn’t an exploitable weakness either.

Bang a Wolf vs. BungJJ

In case you missed it, SSG ADC Ruler's amateur gamer tag was Bung. When comparing Bang to Ruler statistically, Ruler doesn’t come out favourably. While he might take <2% less gold, he does 4% less of his team’s damage and farms less effectively. Bang should be slightly better; after all, this is a player in contention for the greatest ADC to play the game vs. a player who hasn’t been a professional for even 6 months. But is this really an exploitable advantage for SKT? After all, botlane is a 2v2 lane and ADCs cannot thrive without a competent support. And remember that Ruler with a far more damage orientated toplaner than CuVee, so it’s not really that big of an issue.

CoreJJ is the most interesting player in the tournament. For 75% of his professional career, CoreJJ was an utterly uninspiring and mediocre ADC in both NA and KR. Yet the subbing of long time veteran support player Wraith for CoreJJ has transformed SSG and given them significantly more dimensions to their play.

For clarification, Wraith is far from a bad player. The hardships that SSG suffered were never his fault, but it’s clear that CoreJJ offers SSG so much more. CoreJJ has transformed this SSG lineup from a hard to beat, mid table LCK team to a World Finalist. CoreJJ might be both the highest impact single roster change ever and the most successful role swap ever.

Yes, Score went from a stable and solid ADC to the best jungler in the world, but that took over a year. CoreJJ was smashing in heads 4 months after he switched role. Demonstrating exceptional vision control, a wide champion pool, set of playstyles and highly capable laning, it’s just a shame we can’t bottle up whatever CoreJJ did in that 4 month downtime. With his Zyra and Tahm Kench picks, CoreJJ has changed the support meta more than any other player in recent memory.

The truth is that a large part of how KT were able to beat SKT was due to Arrow and Hachani winning the 2v2 vs. Bang and Wolf. Bang and Wolf were never a dominant 2v2, but recently, they seem totally incapable of playing less than favourable matchups. Bang and Wolf look okay-to-capable vs. foreign botlanes, but which Korean botlane doesn’t? ROX’s 2 wins over SKT were snowballed from the botlane, forcing SKT to ban the Miss Fortune pick and takeaway the Ashe. SKT’s botlane performance vs. elite Korean botlane is not where it should be, and SSG have already demonstrated their ability to play the Miss Fortune Ashe lane. CoreJJ is the ultimate wild card in this series, as no one really knows how good he is or if he has another innovative pick prepared. Unless Bang and Wolf step it up in a big way, I expect them to cost SKT at least one game if not two like they did vs. ROX.

In Conclusion

It’s impossible for me to say just how this series will go game by game. If there was a way for SKT to win it’d lie with Bengi, but I’m confident that Ambition can neutralize Bengi and make him a total non-factor in a way that Peanut couldn’t. And when I consider the pick and ban advantages that SSG have, the side lane advantages and how this will be the biggest midlane test that Faker has faced since 2014, I genuinely believe that SKT will lose. Samsung will build themselves a legacy to rival SKT’s and become the most unlikely world champion in the history of League of Legends.

Samsung is a team with two role swappers, a very green rookie, two players who weren’t impressive in foreign regions and a slow burning improvement story. Yet I still believe that Samsung will win over SKT 3 - 1 with Samsung winning the first game.

Just for consideration: 2 years ago Samsung lost the majority of their coaching staff and every player, including the substitutes and practice partners, to foreign teams. Yet here they are back on the Worlds final stage, with a, relatively speaking, small budget. That, regardless of today’s result, is an incredibly impressive achievement.

Photos courtesy of LolEsports.

Cover: Image courtesy of JokinGraphics on DeviantArt