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KOO Tigers crush Fnatic to claim a spot in Finals

Riot·10/25/2015, 10:15:02 PM·5 votes·24,867 views

In front of an energetic Brussels audience, the KOO Tigers outclassed home-crowd favourites Fnatic 3-0 to clinch a spot in the 2015 World Championship Finals.

Many European fans had hoped to see either Origen or Fnatic escape the Semifinals, but Korea proved too dominant -- rampaging through the entire Semifinals weekend without dropping a single game. SKTelecom T1’s victory over Origen had been widely predicted, but many expected the clash between Fnatic and KOO to be a much closer contest.

Fnatic certainly appeared to have an edge in the early stages of Game 1, with a top-lane gank from Yeu-jin “Reignover” Kim’s Rek’Sai securing First Blood for Fnatic. It would prove to be just the first drop of blood in the early-game bloodbath that followed, with the two teams brawling in a series of ramshackle engages that left multiple members of both teams dead, and helped Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten get out to a commanding 4/0 start on LeBlanc.

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However, at the 16-minute mark in Game 1, after burrowing his way from the jungle into turret range, Reignover added ‘-eager’ to the end of his name, flashing toward the enemy team just in time to get knocked by Jong-in “PraY” Kim's Fate's Call on Kalista. With so many knock-ups available in KOO’s composition, the turret had ample time to help burn down the health bars of Fnatic’s front-line. With Reignover and Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo’s champs dead, KOO chased down the fleeing Fnatic, and fed a third kill onto Seo-haeng “KurO” Lee’s Kassadin, helping him come online as a credible threat.

“The biggest reason we tend to fall behind early game is because we are more passive than aggressive,” says KOO’s top-laner Kyung-ho “Smeb” Song. “With the first game against Fnatic, even though we were down in terms of kill score and whatnot, we felt pretty confident that we would win, just based on the fact that there were so many fights early game. Part of it is our confidence in our ability to have good team fights, but a more important part was the fact that we initiated fights when we were supposed to, regardless of the result. That really helped us relax and play better.”

With Gragas deactivated for the duration of Worlds due to a bug, KOO surprised spectators by locking in Zac in the jungle. According to Smeb, the idea had come from the team’s coach No-chul "NoFe" Jeong, a Master Tier-level player who’d been having good results with Zac in Solo Queue and suggested that the team’s jungler Ho-jin “Hojin” Lee pick it as a counter to Rek’Sai. The extra utility from Zac provided a powerful engage tool and reliable means of disrupting Fnatic’s turret sieges.

After a decisive 4-1 team fight and subsequent Baron at 30 minutes, KOO gained control of the map, bulldozing several turrets in rapid succession, putting Fnatic on the defensive. The Europeans came close to recovering after winning a team fight and getting a Baron of their own eight minutes later. But, with two inhibitors down, Fnatic would be forced to use the buff to defend their base. One final apocalyptic team fight around Dragon at 42 minutes ultimately proved Fnatic’s undoing, with Smeb all but zeroing out Fnatic’s primary damage dealer Febiven just seconds into the fight. KurO’s Kassadin cleaned up easily from there.

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Giving up their early advantage in Game 1 and going on to lose such a hard-fought struggle appeared to deal a noticeable blow to Fnatic’s mental fortitude. Their performance in the following two games began to look increasingly desperate, and even on the Fnatic player cams you could notice severe emotional reactions to each misplay.

“I think for League, the psychological aspect is probably the most important part of the game,” says Smeb. “I was pretty happy with my performance in Games 1 and 2, so my [mental state] was pretty solid. Whereas Huni, he was shaken up a bit in my opinion. That's where the difference really came.”

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In a video feature that ran before the series commenced, KOO’s AD Carry PraY acknowledged the passion of the European crowd, joking that he hoped to turn the venue’s atmosphere as quiet as a library. But even as the situation for Fnatic looked hopelessly dire, the fans in Brussels never flagged in their support.

“My plan to kind of turn the arena into a library-like atmosphere didn’t really work,” says PraY. “Because even when we were up, fans kept cheering ‘Fnatic! Fnatic! Fnatic!” to root and show their support. And that actually applied a lot of pressure on us, so we felt the pressure definitely.”

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Players competing in the Semifinals were able to feel the energy of the crowd even more palpably due to an altered stage set-up in which the crowd surrounds the stage on four sides. The new round set-up also has the two competing teams facing one another, as if perched in a close-quarters stand-off.

“What I really liked and like about the stage setup,” says PraY, “is the fact that we’re surrounded by the crowd, the players. Everywhere you turn, you see the fans. It feels almost as if we can feel the chants and the crowd noise better in this setup. I really liked being surrounded by the fans.”

Next weekend in Berlin, the KOO Tigers will square off against the tournament’s only undefeated team, SKTelecom T1. What do they feel they need to improve to have a chance of taking down such an intimidating opponent?

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“Against SKT, we’ve tended to fall apart rather easily,” says Smeb. “I think what’s most important for us to do well against SKT is to continue this momentum and keep our form. And I think we’ll try to not leave everything on the table and not feel the pressure, especially given that this is the last match. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”

“We actually faced SKT during the LCK Finals [earlier this year], and we lost,” adds PraY. “Even going into that, there were questions in the back of our head, like, do we really have an honest chance of winning? I think with next week’s Finals, we’re going to do better. Like Smeb said, what’s most important is to continue our upward swing and keep our momentum. Since we beat Fnatic 3-0, I think we may have a better chance against SKT this time.”

You can watch KOO take on SKT in the 2015 World Championship Finals next Saturday, October 31st, 12:00 CET / 07:00 EST / 04:00 PST.

Find more articles about Worlds 2015 at Lolesports.com.

Jason Killingsworth is a senior writer for Riot Games, based in the company’s Dublin office. He can be found on Twitter @RiotWhiski and has previously written about the history of lane-swaps in professional play.

125 Comments

Legacy of Ra10/25/2015, 10:37:44 PM51 votes

I hope that this crushing defeat will humble Fnatic in the future. They threw away two victories to sloppy play, and were completely outclassed by Koo Tigers in the long-run. The last game was a complete embarrassment for Fnatic as a whole, but Huni especially (considering he's praised as one of the best top-laners in the world right now). 0/8 on a "comfort pick"? His Riven was probably one of the worst we've seen hit the Rift since Worlds started, and that says a lot for a player of his caliber.

Considering the sheer amount of arrogance in the interview following their game against EDG (and all their interviews leading up to this point, really), I expected a lot more from Fnatic with the finals on the line. This was the team with players saying, "No one can beat us," "We're the best team-fighting team in the world," and other nonsense like that. Did they really think that KT would roll over simply because EDG gave up an easy set? I dare to say that Fnatic was drunk on their previous success and came into this set half-cocked, and they paid for it with their chance at the championship.

Honestly, it serves them right.

Bitesized10/25/2015, 10:39:18 PM11 votes

Only one person is in Baron Nashor on Pick'Em now. Hope that guy wins the skin!Riven

SecondComing10/26/2015, 7:27:17 AM9 votes

Seems that all the "Take my energy" from EU fans was nowhere near enough to help Fnatic or Origen. And this wasn't even SKT's (and KOO's) final form (NA fans tried as well but... Oh well, at least C9 made a perfect day 1 at Groups :P).

Well, look at the semifinalists. It was Origen's, Fnatic's and KOO's first year since their creation (Fnatic's with the 4 new players with Yellowstar) and they made it to top 4 teams in the world. I believe they can only learn and become better with time. As for SKT, I don't think they can lose this- in fact, I don't think they'll lose a single game in the Finals (provided Faker starts). And it is nice seeing Faker having a team that can back him up and stand up to his level for a change (season 4 SKT was complete trash and Faker was the only beacon of hope).

Now, I believe it is obvious we need to stop with these stupid "EU>NA/NA>EU" debates and make a united front to beat Asians (Koreans mostly but still...) in video games. Who's with me?

JooshBag10/26/2015, 12:41:03 AM7 votes

All this talk about how Fnatic was arrogant and how they didn't deserve this win, bullshit. They went 18-0 against professional teams, they had confidence that they're team was the best, what's wrong with that? Everyone wants to be the best, or else why even play in the tournament. I do agree that Fnatic played sloppy and didn't watch enough film from koo. I'll also admit that Huni did his fair share of bad plays, but Reignover makes total shit plays. His engages are totally unplanned and therefore fucks over Fnatic. Next year I think they'll have it come together, there a fresh hungry team.

Nadramia Please10/25/2015, 11:22:24 PM7 votes

Honestly, it seems kind of boring that skt is probably going to win again. I hope that KOO could beat them. As for Fnatic, they deserved this crushing loss for how cocky and arrogant they were becoming. Following the EDG series, the team seemed so arrogant about their playstyle. Today, it seemed like that the best players in Europe for their respective areas ( Huni, Reignover, and Reckless), were becoming trash and losing horribly against their oponents. For example, Rekless' Adc Kennen was a game changing champ in game 1 vs EDG or huni's riven. I mean seriously, 0/8 in game 3 for Huni, while getting solo'd by Smeb in game 2. I remember in the spring split, these rookies, excluding yellowstar, played with finesse and they weren't over confident at all. This was the Fnatic that I wanted to get to the finals. I hope they learn in the future that they won't turn into the overconfident cocky bullshit they are fucking today. These losses promote Europe today, since they have some world-class teams, however lets hope they have the experience to become the 2016 Season 6 League of Legends World Champions hosted by Riot Games.

monkeybitter10/26/2015, 8:10:49 AM6 votes

Fnatic got way to cocky as they were fighting teams that were not to the level of Korea's team. They got way to cocky

TrollFan0110/26/2015, 3:39:32 AM5 votes

Come on SKT! Win 3-0 and make history with a perfect 15-0 run! #thedream

magic pole10/26/2015, 5:16:46 AM4 votes

i wasn't invested in either team, just enjoy watching great players play other great players. makes for really entertaining games where i often learn several things during the course of a game (if I'm attentive). this is probably why i enjoy LCK the most out of all the leagues. Not knocking any other region, however, other regions often seem imbalanced with 2-3 teams out of 10 or whatever being dominant. LCK this year I've seen a lot more close games between similarly skilled yet stylistically different teams. (except for SKT maybe who were just clearly the best).

anyways, i was kinda disappointed with the FNC KOO series. That first game was a great game. So back and forth and close despite several glaring team-misplays. It's gotta be some pressure playing in the semi-finals of worlds of such a popular game which millions of people are watching. Did you see that stage and crowd??

anyway Im looking forward to a close final. KOO showed back in spring that they can be THE top team. So far they haven't choked like they did at MSI, and they even faced KT, arguably one of the top-tier teams at worlds. so here's to hoping for a great final series.. as cool as it is for the team themselves, IDK, but look at last years grand-final and the stomp of SHRC by SSW wasn't really entertaining. It almost felt like watching a bot game.

All this said, FNC had a great season and semi-finals at worlds is no disappointment.

anyone who hasn't seen the games today, Game 1 was a great game.

MURDERSQUAD Zero10/25/2015, 11:42:12 PM4 votes

FNC played so poor godamm i know they can do better then that

NiceeLife10/25/2015, 11:25:25 PM4 votes

Sorry, am I lost? I want to watch League of Legends World Championship not Legends Championship Korea finals.

Sycksh1t10/26/2015, 2:17:48 AM3 votes

The throws are real.... Hopefully huni will mature some next year and not tilt so easily...

Otherwise i know most wont agree but imo reignover is the weak link of fnatic...The team makes him look better than he is. They carried him all year and he got far to much praise.

Anyway fnatic couldve won worlds on a good day, replace reignover and tell huni to grow up, maybe next year.

Andersonthegreat10/26/2015, 3:44:53 AM2 votes

So, FW 2-0 KOO tigers and Fnatic got 3-0 by KOO tigers? I never knew Taiwan teams were this good!