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8:23 a.m. ET — Longzhu take down SK Telecom T1 in 25 minutes in game 4 to become the LCK Summer Split champions! Both Longzhu and SKT will advance to the World Championship as representatives of Korea.
8:20 a.m. ET — Longzhu take down SKT’s Nexus towers at 23 minutes, leaving them with almost no way back into the game.
8:17 a.m. ET — Longzhu pick up a second infernal drake and suddenly things are looking pretty grim for SKT.
8:04 a.m. ET — SKT’s decision to work through different styles leads to Longzhu grabbing their biggest early lead of the series with 6k gold at 15 minutes.
7:51 a.m. ET — Pick and Ban Game 4
SKT’s comp is a disjointed mess of three different styles, while Longzhu is focused on poke exclusively. However, SKT have the stronger hypercarries and the higher damage.
Longzhu: Jayce, Gragas, Taliyah, Caitlyn, Thresh
Bans: Cassiopeia, Leblanc, Zac, Elise, Jarvan IV
SKT: Cho’Gath, Maokai, Corki, Tristana, Rakan
Bans: Kalista, Galio, Sejuani, Jax, Lucian
7:34 a.m. ET — A very strong strategy in the early game gives SKT their first win of the series.
7:29 a.m. ET —SKT have been completely dominant this game, shutting down Cuzz in the early game allowed Blank complete control of the map with Huni out-scaling the Khan’s Camille.
7:16 a.m. ET — SK Telecom have taken a massive 5k gold lead at 13 minutes and have put themselves in a fantastic place to win.
6:57 a.m. ET — Pick and Ban Game 3
Both teams are running back game 1 here, with the new addition of Huni in the top lane for SKT. Longzhu still has the composition advantage, but their team fight isn’t quite as strong thanks to Camille. If Khan is able to snowball though, there isn’t much that SKT will be able to do to stop him.
Longzhu: Camille, Zac, Orianna, Varus, Taric
Bans: Cassiopeia, Rakan, Maokai, Cho’Gath, Lucian
SKT: Gnar, Gragas, Leblanc, Xayah, Alistar
Bans: Galio, Kalista, Tristana, Jax, Jayce
6:45 a.m. ET — Longzhu struggled early, but pulled the game back from fantastic play around objectives including a dragon fight that turned the game around.
6:28 a.m. ET — SKT keep taking strong fights, but Longzhu are getting all the objectives and end every fight with more kills.
6:10 a.m. ET — Unlike game 1, game 2 has been almost all fight focused with few objectives being taken and skirmishes breaking out all over the map.
5:48 a.m. ET — Pick and Ban Game 2
Ekko into Taliyah is going to be a very strange match up. SKT must see this as a necessary counter pick because the champions doesn’t quite fit their comp. It feels a little bit like Longzhu picked around this Jayce from the get go, hoping that the Jax would mask it’s selection and help it fall through pick and ban, so we’ll see what Khan can manage to do with it.
SKT: Shen, Sejuani, Ekko, Twitch, Rakan
Bans: Jax, Galio, Tristana, Alistar, Trundle
Longzhu: Jayce, Gragas, Taliyah, Xayah, Thresh
Bans: Cassiopeia, Zac, Kalista, Leblanc, Maokai
5:47 a.m. ET — Blank is being subbed in for Peanut.
5:15 a.m. ET — Longzhu absolutely dominated game 1, and they did it for the entirety on a scaling composition. This was a funny kind of win, because it was earned slowly and efficiently rather than off the back of one or two strong plays. SKT’s carries in every lane looked completely absent from the match, and are going to have to look for a complete turn around.
5:08 a.m. ET — Khan duels Faker 1v1 in the bottom lane to go up to 5/1/2. It’s hard to overstate just how unimpressive Faker has been on Leblanc so far in game 1. It’s out of character, but he simply doesn’t seem to know how to enter teamfights.
5:01 a.m. ET — Just as I say that SK Telecom fall prey to a hilarious teleport bait that leads to a 4 for 1 trade in favor of Longzhu and first tower. SKT are getting extremely nervous about being unable to gain a lead against Longzhu’s scaling comp.
5:00 a.m. ET — A failed gank toplane seems like it will give SKT an advantage but Faker makes a colossal overplay on Leblanc that surrenders any advantage they could have gained. It’s hard not to feel like Faker and SKT are getting extremely impatient.
4:54 a.m ET — 9 minutes in we have an intensely strategic match up with both teams carefully testing their opponents responses to aggression in various parts of the map. It’s worth noting that as far as these things go, this early game is giving Longzhu a massive advantage in the rest of the game, since SKT won’t scale into the game quite as well.
4:33 a.m. ET — Pick and Ban Game 1
In a throwback to earlier this season we are getting a Varus vs Ashe bottom lane. Bang’s Ashe is strong, but I can’t help but feel that it won’t be able to keep with the engage potential of Varus. On a related note, Leblanc should technically be countered with Varus and Alistar on Longzhu, then again, it is Faker’s Leblanc. Longzhu is going to have a massive amount of damage coming into the mid and late game, but that’s assuming they manage to survive SKT’s early and mid game strengths.
Longzhu: Jax, Zac, Orianna, Varus, Alistar
Bans: Cassiopeia, Rakan, Maokai, Cho’Gath, Zyra
SKT: Shen, Gragas, Leblanc, Ashe, Tahm Kench
Bans: Galio, Kalista, Tristana, Trundle, Jayce
The LCK Summer Split finals kick off Saturday morning with a face off between Spring Split champions SK Telecom T1, and the unlikely Summer Split number one seed, Longzhu Gaming.
For SKT, this match will represent the conclusion to an almost two months of struggle as the team struggled throughout the middle of the split. And their rise back to greatness has gone well so far. The first two rounds of playoffs were quick and easy for SKT, and their long and difficult series against kt Rolster proves that they still have what it takes to win close games. If they can manage to take down Longzhu, the regular split’s strongest team by a wide margin, it may be just enough for the criticism to stop and for people to believe that this SKT lineup can actually win Worlds.
Longzhu, on the other hand, have the whole world in front of them. They dominated the regular season, have the current best player in the game playing at mid lane in Kwak “Bdd” Bo-seong, and now they have the chance to make a case as the best team in the entire world.
LINEUPS
SK Telecom T1
- Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon, Park “Untara” Ui-jin
- Han “Peanut” Wang-ho, Kang “Blank” Sungu
- Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok
- Bae “Bang” Jun-sik
- Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan
Longzhu Gaming
- Kim “Khan” Dong-ha
- Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan
- Kwak “Bdd” Bo-seong
- Kim “Pray” Jong-in
- Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon
HOW TO WATCH
The SKT vs. kt series will be a best-of-five and watchable on here or at the LCK Twitch channel. It is scheduled to start at 4 a.m. ET.