This year’s League of Legends world championship in Los Angeles made history as SK Telecom T1 became the first team to ever win back-to-back titles. The Korean team is proving to be a powerful dynasty that will be difficult to take down. Having won the previous three of the past four League of Legends world championships, SKT now reigns as the top team for another year. And they took a hold of Summoner’s Cup in epic fashion.
According to ESPN, the dynamic team faced off against fellow Korean juggernaut Samsung Galaxy at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, the very first venue where SKT won their first world championship back in 2013. The finale went to a full five games before SKT came out on top.
In one of the longest games of the tournament, the first match up looked like it was going to be a lopsided blow out, with the reigning champions routing Samsung Galaxy. Samsung, though, were doing well to trade kills and objectives around the map. However, as their macroplay – the ability to transfer map pressure into advantages in lane – began to pick up by the 13 minute period, SKT’s superiority proved to be too much for Samsung to overcome. The first game was defined by control of the map, and in this area SKT’s Bengi and Faker dominated the mid lane. In the end, despite sloppy play from SKT that lead to a prolonged game, it was SKT’s mid laner who nabbed a kill on Crown during the final team fight that sealed their victory. The second game saw Samsung adopt a different tactic: high damage. However, despite strategically lining up their team, poor positioning lead to easy kills. In a short amount of time, Samsung gave up many kills which prevented them from having any hope of coming back. They lost this match by the 30 minute mark.
In game 3, SKT’s superiority led many to believe that a sweep was in store for Samsung, yet Samsung proved why no one should underestimate them. Despite SKT’s allowing Crown to take Aurelion Sol, perhaps the strongest mid lane champion in the Worlds meta, SKT consistently placed Faker in a disadvantageous position by matching him up against Crown. SKT, once again, got sloppy with their play and Samsung rolled over them during the Baron power play. 57 minutes into Game 3, Samsung jumped on to the Baron and burnt it down. Game 4 featured a substitution from Samsung – a young jungler known as Kang “Blank” Sun-gu. By the 26 minute mark, SKT dominated crowd control, scattering Samsung around the map, which led to a kill on Crown. In the late game, Samsung’s precision team play showed up at the final team fight. Ruler Flashed forward and picked off both Band and Wolf to help secure the Elder Dragon for Samsung and they eventually push into SKT’s base to force a final, Game 5.
In the fifth and final game, SKT looked resurgent and they weren’t going to be content with being passive with their gameplay as they were in the previous two games. Bengi and Lee Sin returned from the bench, which allowed SKT to stabilize their lanes. The match was an exciting one with SKT holding a 3-1 kill lead 4 minutes in. Samsung Galaxy’s Ambition and CoreJJ attacked on the bottom lane with multiple tower dives to funnel farm onto AD carry Crown. Instead of having the Baron power play back fire like it did in Game 3, SKT punished Crown’s and Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk’s movements. This led to SKT having full map control over neutral objectives. SKT then collapsed Samsung’s base and destroyed their last defenses to capture the championship.
Over the course of the three world finals that they’ve won, SKT holds an impressive 9-3 record. This year’s World Championship also marked the first time that the final event has gone to a full five games.