Pre-Worlds Part 1: Clearing up the Korean Confusion!

This past weekend we saw a few of the qualifiers for worlds in a couple different regions. As of now, we officially know 6 of the 16 teams who have qualified and we have regional champions for three regions. While the rest of the League world holds its collective breath and waits for the results; we, as fans, can take a while to reflect on the story lines of the past two weeks and really delve into the why and the how of some team’s journeys. Specifically, we will take a look at the Korean scene shake-up and the new dominate force in EU!

First, let us clear up a bit of the confusion on the Korean scene since they are the region to watch and the likely favorite to win Worlds. The one team we do know that made it is Samsung Galaxy Blue, not surprisingly. Based on the Korean Circuit point system; Samsung Blue, as long as they made finals, were guaranteed to go. Regardless of the outcome of the final match; they were the first one qualified and the results of the final 4 could only affect the number 2 seed, which is also based on circuit points. Yes, despite the fact that Samsung Blue fell to KT Arrows 3-2 in the final, they are still the number 1 seed and are going to Worlds. The second seed, as discussed, also comes from circuit points and was slated to be given to Samsung White as soon as they made top 4 of Champions. However, SKT T1 K battled back in the NLB competition in Korea and managed to sneak in just enough points to tie Samsung White. This means that there will be a one-time tie breaker between Samsung Galaxy White and SKT T1 K to determine the 2^nd overall seed. This was announced by Korea’s caster DoA that the match will be on the 27^th. The expected winner is, as expected, Samsung White as they had been a close second in the entirety of OGN Champions Summer and only fell in the finals to their sister team in Samsung Galaxy Blue. However, with the KT Arrows beating Blue in a fantastic best of 5, many are speculating on their chances of doing so and wondering if White will be able to succeed where their counterparts failed.

Furthermore, based on the outcome of the game on the 27^th, there will be an additional contest to see who the 3^rd overall seed from Korea is which is a battle between the remaining 3-6 overall seeds in Korea, currently this list includes: SKT T1 K, KT Rollster Arrows, KT Rollster Bullets, and Najin White Shield. These teams will play a series of games on the 28^th, 29^th, and 30^th. The 28^th will feature the first match between KT Bullets and Najin White shield. The winner of this will then play KT Arrows and the winner of that will play the loser of SKT T1 K and Samsung White for the final spot. At the end of Champions Summer MonteCristo and DoA were speculating that based on their performance against Samsung Blue that KT Arrows will be favored in all of their matches, however, they will have to win two best of 5’s against (likely) Najin White Shield and SKT T1 K. Yes, that means that there is a chance that the defending Worlds Champion SKT T1 K might not even get a chance to defend their title (What a difference a year makes!!). For now, we all sit and wait in anticipation for the 27^th when we know who the second seed will be. It is good to note that the games will be on the new patch in 4.14 so it is entirely possible that one team is better at this patch than the last as we have seen in many other regions. Despite this, we have 4 very exciting days of League coming up for Korea.

If you did not get to watch I implore you find a way to get the games from OGN finals as their system is (in my opinion) so much better than we do it in NA and EU. They do best of 5s all through the finals, with games 1-4 being standard draft pick and game 5 being a blind pick game. While game 5 was very exciting getting to see mirror Maokai matches in the top lane, mirror Yasuo matches in the mid lane, and mirror Allistar support matches in the bottom lane it was still an extremely tight game and was back and forth for a good 20 minutes before KT took their advantage and really ran away with it. However, this is not the best highlight of the night. The real game to watch was game 4 as KT showcased not only confidence in their start jungler KaKAO to play what he thinks is best in a given situation, but also managed to come back against a late-game Kassadin and pull out a win. Stay tuned for part 2 of this article and I will have a short write-up of the highlights of the win.

That is it for today! I hope the shorter articles will encourage you all to read more and hopefully I will be posting every 2-4 days!

Also don't forget about the NA regionals this weekend! Friday will be the NA qualifier teams and Sat/Sun will be the first few matches for the NA LCS finals!
You can find the stream here: http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames
And you can find the schedule here:  http://na.lolesports.com/schedule/2014-08-18

Thank you for reading!