One of the most storied match ups in Worlds history is back again, as SK telecom T1 take on Royal Never Give Up for the third time on the World’s stage, in the semifinals on Saturday morning.
For the first time in this match up’s history, the teams will come in with their usual roles reversed, as RNG enters the game having played the more impressive tournament, while SKT might even be considered by some a slight underdog.
Despite the fact that they left the group with a 5-1 record, it would be hard to call SK Telecom impressive during the Group Stage. In fact, they barely managed to win three of those games, with the decision coming down to one key mistake from the opposition. Meanwhile, in their quarterfinal series against Misfits, SKT was taken to the brink of elimination, but was saved by a bit of overaggression from Misfits as they tower dove just a little too hard, giving up their lead in game four and ultimately falling in game five.
Royal Never Give Up, on the other hand, has looked positively dominant in so far at the 2017 World Championships. Dropping only two games total, both strange one off losses to European teams, RNG has never looked out of control of a game and dominates both early and late, something SKT has rarely been able to do at the tournament so far.
While recent form may favor RNG, you can never count out back-to-back World Champions SK telecom T1 out of a series before it starts. The series will be a best-of-five and starts at 3:30 a.m. ET on October 28.