OGN: Quarterfinal Recap, Semifinal Preview

Riot·4/30/2014, 5:57:15 PM·0 votes·432 views

The past two weeks have born witness to the OGN Champions Spring 2014 quarterfinals. All four series were excellent, but the SK Telecom T1 K vs Samsung Galaxy Ozone and NaJin White Shield vs KT Rolster Bullets stood out. All of the action set up semifinals that feature an all Samsung series and a NaJin White Shield/CJ Entus Blaze best-of-five that is a rehash of Group D action from a month ago.

Down Goes T1 K

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Telecom T1 K has been in a slump for the better part of a month. Patch changes and some roster turmoil have negatively affected the team. The slump culminated in a 3-1 loss to Samsung Galaxy Ozone in the quarterfinals. All three of Ozone's victories were one-sided affairs dotted with questionable SK Telecom calls on the strategic and tactical level. Adding insult to injury, T1 K just suffered another 3-1 loss at the hands of CJ Entus Frost in NLB this week.

Blind pick comeback

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The NaJin White Shield vs KT Rolster Bullets series was arguably the series of the year thus far in Korea. The Bullets went up 2-0 in a pair of surprisingly dominate performances from a team that was having issues with consistency. NaJin White Shield battled back to force a climactic game five blind pick scenario where they eked out a decisive win. While it wasn't the prettiest series for NaJin Shield, it is the hallmark of a great team that when they're having a bad night, they can circle the wagons and score a win.

Teamkill incoming

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The Ozone victory over T1 K, and the Samsung Blue victory over CJ Entus Frost, have set up a Samsung-only battle in one of the two semifinals series. Samsung Ozone has been on a serious hot streak recently. They've only dropped a single match with their full roster (SK Telecom T1 S in Masters) since they were unceremoniously swept in OGN Champions Winter 2013-2014.

Samsung Galaxy Blue hasn't been slouching either. They secured the No. 1 seed out of Group C, one of the strongest groups in Champions Spring. Blue followed up the group performance with a 3-1 victory over CJ Frost where they fell behind early in several games, but won behind compositions that scaled harder. If Samsung Blue lacked any confidence, they recently scored a dominating win over SK Telecom T1 K in Masters.

In the aftermath of Champions Winter 2013-2014, the Samsung organization switched their mid laners, moving PawN to Ozone and dade to Blue. While the insider knowledge provided by the swapped players should be negligible since both teams are so intertwined, the desire for revenge, or to prove that the roster move helped one team more than the other, is a factor heading in.

The biggest storyline, though, is how innovative the Samsung Galaxy organization is. Both teams are well-known for figuring out different tricks before the rest of Korea. Blue invented the Nidalee/Lucian siege comp that saw so much play during the beginning of the season. Ozone was one of the earliest adopters of Yasuo as a hard counter to Nidalee. If either team is able to pull out something new when both teams have generally operated off of the same playbook promises to be a series-defining concept.

Shield and Blaze: Same song, different verse

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The other semifinal game is a rehash of a groups match that actually wasn't settled until White Shield beat Blaze in a tiebreaker. CJ Entus Blaze beat the KT Rolster Arrows, the No. 1 from Group A, in the quarterfinals 3-1 while NaJin Shield had their aforementioned series against the KT Rolster Bullets.

What got these teams to the semifinals? CJ Entus Blaze has a Jekyll-and-Hyde tendency to either be extremely aggressive to dominate a game's tempo, or fall back into a passive farming game where top laner Flame and mid laner Ambition get funneled gold until they are able to carry.

NaJin White Shield had primarily been a siege team that stretched games very late. It is a common joke between OGN English shoutcasters Erik "DoA" Lonnquist and Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles that NaJin is only allowed to win after forty minutes. The recent series against the KT Bullets forced them to show some strategic depth, though. They eschewed siege for pick, or five man team-fighting, compositions. The added dimensions give CJ Blaze a bit more to prepare for.

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The three games that both of these teams have played against each other in groups provide a good blueprint regarding what to expect when they meet again. Blaze went passive, and allowed Shield to open up a lead in all three games. Blaze's one win against Shield in Champions Spring was a comeback victory. A stunning turn from all three games was the play of Save, the NaJin Shield top laner. Blaze relies on top laner Flame to be a major cog in a victory, but Save was able to fight him to a standstill.

To Blaze's credit, they appear to be turning the aggression back up. In their series against the KT Rolster Arrows, Blaze was able to find little advantages through grabbing the tempo of several games and forcing the Arrows into untenable situations. Was it naked aggression on Blaze's part? No. It was a far more calculated style of game where the onus was on the Arrows to break the CJ stranglehold. Which version of Blaze shows up to take on Shield? Will Blaze be able to force NaJin Shield onto different compositions much like the KT Bullets did in the quarterfinals? The answer to all these questions and more will be answered when the two teams meet up on May 16th at 3:00 am PDT / 12:00 CET with a spot in the OGN Champions Spring finals on the line.

What's Next?

Blaze and Shield settle their differences on the Rift Friday May 2nd, 2014 at 3:00 am PDT / 12:00 CET. The winner moves on to the Champions Spring finals while the loser falls into the 3rd/4th place game. The games will be broadcast live Twitch.tv/OnGameNet.