A Return to Form: SK Telecom T1
Riot·4/24/2015, 5:33:30 PM·1 votes·40,491 views
Before the GE Tigers donned cat ears, made their case for schoolboy prep chick, and stormed to an 11-0 domestic record, they were nowhere near the top of the SBENU Champions Spring 2015 preseason ranking. That honor belonged to the once-kings of Korea, Season 3 World Champions SK Telecom T1.
With the merged rosters of SK Telecom T1 S and SK Telecom T1 K, the 2015 SK Telecom T1 squad retained a larger amount of talent than most teams following the dismantling of the sister team system. Their 4-1 record during the Spring Preseason told the story of a team poised to regain their former glory in a region that had lost a significant amount of talent.
While SKT T1 K dominated internationally and domestically, their sister team waited in the shadows. Neither a good team nor a bad one, SKT T1 S was the boring sister of their superstar sibling. Composed of Jang “MaRin” Gyeong-Hwan in top, Cho “H0R0” Jae-hwan in the jungle, Li “Easyhoon” Ji-hoon in mid, AD Carry Bae "Bang" Jun-sik, and Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan on support, SK T1 S was more known for putting spectators to sleep than thrilling them. With team compositions with excessive wave clear -- especially when Easyhoon was on his signature champion of Ziggs -- SK T1 S’s matches often dragged as the team would wait for their opponents to make a mistake and capitalize.
SK Telecom T1 S joined the ranks of other Korean teams attempting to take down SK Telecom T1 K. Even in this endeavor, like their position as SK Telecom’s other team, they fell short of not only their sister team but their regional competitors. The winner of 2014 was the Samsung Galaxy organization, who eclipsed the strength of SK Telecom by Hot6ix Champions Spring 2014. SK T1 S failed to make the playoffs, and SK T1 K was eliminated by Samsung Galaxy White in the quarterfinals. Samsung Galaxy Blue would go on to win the entire tournament.
Hot6ix Champions Summer told a similar tale, with K once again falling to Samsung White in the quarterfinals. Even with a quarterfinals victory SK T1 S was all but forgotten, eliminated by the KT Rolster Arrows in the Champions Summer semifinals. Adding insult to injury was Samsung Galaxy’s 3-0 sweep of SK Telecom in the SK Telecom LTE-A LoL Masters finals. The prior kings of Korea, SK Telecom T1, had been thoroughly dethroned, and while SK T1 K finished third in overall circuit points, their hopes of returning to the world stage were crushed by NaJin White Shield in the Korean Regional Finals.
SK Telecom entered the preseason switching between MaRin, and former SK T1 K top laner Jun “Impact” Eon-yeong. Surprisingly, MaRin outshone the former world champion, and Impact left SKT towards the end of the preseason, leaving MaRin as the sole top laner on the team.
On the combined roster, and a less stagnant top lane meta, MaRin has had the best season of his professional career. Often called upon as a primary, or secondary carry to Faker in the mid lane, MaRin looks at home on the new SK Telecom, especially on champions like Maokai -- on whom he boasts a 91% win rate and a 7.79 KDA -- Gnar, and Hecarim. His individual, and subsequently SK Telecom’s, success have earned him a 3.88 overall KDA on the season, the third best of all Champions top laners.
Oozing with talent from their previous rosters of S and K, along with new players Lee “Piccaboo” Jong-Beom and the aforementioned T0M, SKT’s SBENU Champions Spring 2015 performance also marks the most successful use of roster substitutions. Both Piccaboo and Wolf have bolstered SK Telecom’s performance from the support position, and Easyhoon is arguably the second-best mid laner in Korea to his starting counterpart, Faker. SK Telecom have utilised the depth of their bench effectively The GE Tigers may have made the most noise throughout the Spring season, but it’s SK Telecom who finished stronger, sweeping through the back half of the season without dropping a best of three. The final four weeks of the season, SK Telecom went 8-0, failing to drop a single game.
The rise of tanks also makes the rift slightly more difficult for assassins. Undaunted, Faker has played champions with more sustained damage, like Cassiopeia, Vladimir, and even the odd Anivia pick. Easyhoon now provides an even more formidable threat for SK Telecom’s opponents and it wouldn’t be surprising to see SKT call upon him, and his Ziggs, in their upcoming set with GE Tigers.
With the most amount of retained talent from their previous rosters, increased performance from players like MaRin, new breakout talent like T0M and Piccaboo, and a favorable meta shift, SK Telecom looks to recover their title of kings of Korea. The GE Tigers may have been the most talked-about Korean team in Champions Spring, but SK Telecom have been quietly within their reach, outperforming the Tigers in the latter half of the season. SK Telecom will then meet GE in the finals, hoping to knock the upstart team back and reclaim their crown.
S and K
This story of the 2015 SK Telecom begins in 2013. After SK Telecom T1 K took the world by storm at the Season 3 World Championship, they returned to Korea and went on a domestic tear through PANDORA.TV Champions Winter 2013-14. Finishing first in their group, they crushed all of their opponents without dropping a single match on their way to the Champions Winter title, making for one of the most impressive domestic wins in League of Legends history. Combined with their World Champion status, it seemed like no team could tangle with the likes of SK Telecom T1 K. They had the best team in the world, and additionally the best professional player to have played the game, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok.
While SKT T1 K dominated internationally and domestically, their sister team waited in the shadows. Neither a good team nor a bad one, SKT T1 S was the boring sister of their superstar sibling. Composed of Jang “MaRin” Gyeong-Hwan in top, Cho “H0R0” Jae-hwan in the jungle, Li “Easyhoon” Ji-hoon in mid, AD Carry Bae "Bang" Jun-sik, and Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan on support, SK T1 S was more known for putting spectators to sleep than thrilling them. With team compositions with excessive wave clear -- especially when Easyhoon was on his signature champion of Ziggs -- SK T1 S’s matches often dragged as the team would wait for their opponents to make a mistake and capitalize.
SK Telecom T1 S joined the ranks of other Korean teams attempting to take down SK Telecom T1 K. Even in this endeavor, like their position as SK Telecom’s other team, they fell short of not only their sister team but their regional competitors. The winner of 2014 was the Samsung Galaxy organization, who eclipsed the strength of SK Telecom by Hot6ix Champions Spring 2014. SK T1 S failed to make the playoffs, and SK T1 K was eliminated by Samsung Galaxy White in the quarterfinals. Samsung Galaxy Blue would go on to win the entire tournament.
Hot6ix Champions Summer told a similar tale, with K once again falling to Samsung White in the quarterfinals. Even with a quarterfinals victory SK T1 S was all but forgotten, eliminated by the KT Rolster Arrows in the Champions Summer semifinals. Adding insult to injury was Samsung Galaxy’s 3-0 sweep of SK Telecom in the SK Telecom LTE-A LoL Masters finals. The prior kings of Korea, SK Telecom T1, had been thoroughly dethroned, and while SK T1 K finished third in overall circuit points, their hopes of returning to the world stage were crushed by NaJin White Shield in the Korean Regional Finals.
MaRin’s Impact
Like many prodigious talents plucked from the Korean solo queue ladder, top laner MaRin was compared to Faker when he arrived on SK Telecom T1 S. Hailed as “the Faker of the top lane,” MaRin quickly fell short of these lofty expectations. In playing a more aggressive carry style, MaRin often seemed at odds with his team, who relied on wave clear and the long game. Upon merging the two roster of SK T1 S and SK T1 K, he became the starting top laner for the new SK Telecom. With fan expectations adjusted, nothing much was expected of MaRin beyond continued mediocrity.
SK Telecom entered the preseason switching between MaRin, and former SK T1 K top laner Jun “Impact” Eon-yeong. Surprisingly, MaRin outshone the former world champion, and Impact left SKT towards the end of the preseason, leaving MaRin as the sole top laner on the team.
On the combined roster, and a less stagnant top lane meta, MaRin has had the best season of his professional career. Often called upon as a primary, or secondary carry to Faker in the mid lane, MaRin looks at home on the new SK Telecom, especially on champions like Maokai -- on whom he boasts a 91% win rate and a 7.79 KDA -- Gnar, and Hecarim. His individual, and subsequently SK Telecom’s, success have earned him a 3.88 overall KDA on the season, the third best of all Champions top laners.
Champions Spring Success
MaRin isn’t the only one who has found success on the merged roster. Across the KDA leaderboard, SK Telecom has the most players, eight in total, in the top five of their positions of any Champions team. This includes new jungler Im “T0M” Jae-hyeon who leads all junglers with a 7.0 KDA and 100% win rate since he made his Champions debut in Week 9. Not to be outdone, stalwart mid lane substitute Easyhoon leads all midlaners with a KDA of 9.2.
Oozing with talent from their previous rosters of S and K, along with new players Lee “Piccaboo” Jong-Beom and the aforementioned T0M, SKT’s SBENU Champions Spring 2015 performance also marks the most successful use of roster substitutions. Both Piccaboo and Wolf have bolstered SK Telecom’s performance from the support position, and Easyhoon is arguably the second-best mid laner in Korea to his starting counterpart, Faker. SK Telecom have utilised the depth of their bench effectively The GE Tigers may have made the most noise throughout the Spring season, but it’s SK Telecom who finished stronger, sweeping through the back half of the season without dropping a best of three. The final four weeks of the season, SK Telecom went 8-0, failing to drop a single game.
Meta Shift
SK Telecom has not only retained the most prior talent of their former sister teams, and additionally groomed their rising stars, but the organization is also poised to make a splash in the current meta. Due to the post-patch 5.5 tank environment, former SKT T1 K jungler Bae “bengi” Seong-ung becomes a much more formidable threat. Allowed to play his slower style of farming while controlling vision in the enemy jungle, the new meta suits bengi well. Not to be outdone, T0M has looked stellar on the recent patches as well, especially on Sejuani and his pocket pick of Udyr.
The rise of tanks also makes the rift slightly more difficult for assassins. Undaunted, Faker has played champions with more sustained damage, like Cassiopeia, Vladimir, and even the odd Anivia pick. Easyhoon now provides an even more formidable threat for SK Telecom’s opponents and it wouldn’t be surprising to see SKT call upon him, and his Ziggs, in their upcoming set with GE Tigers.
With the most amount of retained talent from their previous rosters, increased performance from players like MaRin, new breakout talent like T0M and Piccaboo, and a favorable meta shift, SK Telecom looks to recover their title of kings of Korea. The GE Tigers may have been the most talked-about Korean team in Champions Spring, but SK Telecom have been quietly within their reach, outperforming the Tigers in the latter half of the season. SK Telecom will then meet GE in the finals, hoping to knock the upstart team back and reclaim their crown.
and 
in Korea finally get to prove himself 
