OGN: Where do the teams stand?
Riot·6/17/2014, 12:37:07 AM·0 votes·5,339 views
When deciding which Korean teams will be heading to Worlds, the OGN does thing a bit differently.
Instead of a group stage/playoff setup, the OGN uses Circuit Points accrued through three separate tournaments throughout the season to determine which teams from Korea qualify for worlds. During the 2013 season, the two teams with the most Circuit Points, MVP (Now Samsung Galaxy) White & NaJin Black Sword, automatically qualified for the Season Three World Championship. The next four teams were placed in a bracket to compete for the final position. That spot was later won by SK Telecom T1 K, and the rest is history.
This year, two of the three tournaments, OGN Champions Winter 2013-2014 & OGN Champions Spring 2014, are complete. The third, OGN Champions Summer kicks off in a little under a week. While the specific format to decide who represents Korea for the 2014 World Championship, the landscape has several familiar faces this season, but an infusion of new talent has given 2014 a flair all its own.
** denotes already qualifying for the Korea Regionals due to winning the SK Telecom LTE-A LoL Masters Tournament
Note: There are other teams that have Circuit Points, but those teams are on the outside looking in to make it into Regionals barring a deep run into the bracket stage of OGN Champions Summer, or winning the summer NLB tournament
Circuit Point Table
| Team | Circuit Points | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Galaxy Blue** | 450 | ||
| SK Telecom T1 K | 450 | ||
| Samsung Galaxy White** | 375 | ||
| NaJin White Shield | 325 | ||
| KT Rolster Bullets | 190 | ||
| CJ Entus Blaze | 175 | ||
| NaJin Black Sword | 120 | CJ Entus Frost | 95 |
Samsung Organization brings two to Regionals
The Samsung Galaxy organization has taken over the throne from SK Telecom T1 as the kings of Korea. They won LoL Masters, and by virtue of their win, both Samsung Galaxy Blue & White are automatically qualified for the Korean regionals. If it is assumed that there will be automatic bids by virtue of accrued Circuit Points, there is an excellent chance that the organization could sweep those given that both teams have been playing on another level for the past few months. The only teams that could realistically play spoiler to that goal are SK Telecom T1 K & NaJin White Shield. CJ Entus Blaze, KT Rolster Bullets, and NaJin Black Sword are too far back to be a factor.
SK Telecom T1 K
After SK Telecom T1 K finished undefeated last split, they took a step back in OGN Champions Spring. The team is itching to get back to the heights that they obtained just six months ago, and will largely depend on how they respond to the ever-shifting metagame. Their games in the LoL Masters finals were more focused on AoE teamfighting, and transitioning those wins into objectives as opposed to objective pressure at the expense of engagements that is very common across the world. When playing the objective game, SK Telecom T1 K has few peers. They’re still very aggressive, and can take advantage of an error by their opponent to grab tempo and not relinquish it. In terms of what they need to do to make it to regionals, their win in Champions Winter has virtually assured. It would take a CJ Entus Blaze win in Champions, and T1 K scoring zero Circuit Points from Champions Summer/NLB Summer to knock them out.
NaJin White Shield
NaJin White Shield has taken huge strides during the 2014 season. They went as deep as they ever had in an OGN tournament with their 4th place finish in Champions Winter, and then flawlessly adapted to the retirement of NoFe and the transfer of Watch to score a 2nd in Champions Spring. While their margin for error isn’t as broad as SK Telecom T1 K’s is, Shield’s strong laners have been a tremendous force this season, and their continued proficiency should see them into Regionals at worst.
KT Rolster Bullets
KT Rolster Bullets’ Circuit Points come primarily from their third place finish in OGN Champions Winter. The fourth place in the NLB Spring tournament was worth only 40 points. Where they’ll end up is a matter that will bear watching throughout Champions Summer. The team rebuilt the roster after Spring, and there are many questions surrounding how everything is gelling. The new members, Ju “Limit” Min-Gyu in the top lane and Kim “Nagne” Sang-moon - formerly of NaJin Black Sword - as well as mid-laner-turned-jungler Ryu “Ryu” Sang-wook, do not get much leeway in the upcoming tournament cycle. Another failure like the one they suffered in NLB will leave the team in a precarious position for regionals. They could potentially miss them entirely, making getting to the 2014 World Championship tournament extremely difficult.
CJ Entus Blaze
While the KT Rolster Bullets have been trending downward this season, CJ Entus Blaze has been on an upswing. They won NLB Winter, and scored a fourth in OGN Champions Spring. They’re looking to take the next step going into Champions Summer, but Blaze has to break in new support Jung “Gunza” Gun-hee at the support position after Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik decided to leave the team. How AD carry Kim “Emperor” Jin-hyun and Gunza synergize will be key, particularly as Emperor emerged in the LoL Masters playoffs in the past month. Blaze’s position in terms of Korean regionals is much like the KT Rolster Bullets. They cannot suffer a poor performance and entertain a realistic hope of making it through the regional tournament gauntlet.
NaJin Black Sword
The consistently mediocre Sword has a pair of second place finishes in NLB, and they’ve chewed through multiple different roster combinations throughout the 2014 season. Their newest crop of players has four new faces: Middle laner Lee “kurO” Seo-haeng came over from Incredible Miracle #2, and Oh “Ohq” Gyu-min joined from Xenics Storm, while Lee “Duke” Ho-seong, formerly LEOPARD of the KT Rolster Bullets, will man the top lane position. Finally, Lee “Lee” Ho-Jin was signed as a solo queue superstar. Lee’s jungling was hit-or-miss in Masters, but he showed underlying mechanical skill that have great potential. The problem for Black Sword is trying to get all of these disparate parts to fit into a cohesive unit quickly. They did storm through their qualifying group, but Sword has to make a large step up when they square off against the other members of Group B in OGN Champions Summer. If they maintain their questionable play, they probably miss regionals entirely. Even if they make it, they’ll be the final seed. Assuming the tournament is structured the same way that it was last year, that would mean going through every higher seed in a best-of-five, a tall task for any team.
