SKT overcome Kingzone DragonX Frostmancy strategy

SK Telecom T1 started the new lunar year with a victory against Kingzone DragonX to secure third place in the LCK.

It’s a new year and a new meta in the LCK, as the Korean league is back after a week of celebrations. Despite the chaotic new meta, SKT managed to pull a reverse sweep against Kingzone.

Game one went in favor of Kingzone through the use of the “Frostmancy” strategy.

Top laner Kim “Rascal” Kwang-hee on Karma and mid laner Heo “PawN” Won-seok on Azir started the match with the support item Spellthief’s Edge. In combination with the Kleptomancy rune, this strategy allowed Kingzone to generate extra gold and retain vision control of the map.

This fairly bloodless game showed why Riot Games hot fixed the item. Kingzone had the ability to place over 12 wards at the same time, preventing SKT from engaging. The bonus gold generation helped Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu reach a power spike before his rivals, and the poke was too much for them to handle.

In game two, SKT was quick to adapt and banned Karma immediately. The ban phase changed the tone of the match.

Calm and collected, SKT focused on the laning phase, going only for necessary engagements. The kills and neutral objectives went in SKT’s favor. Without the same vision control and with less gold, Kingzone couldn’t contest the baron nor the elder dragon. At 36 minutes and with a strong double buff, SKT won game two.

In game three, Kingzone was out of options and tried once again to pull off the Frostmancy strategy SKT recognized their enemy’s weaknesses and focused on neutralizing jungler Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan.

The constant harassment from Kim “Clid” Tae-min and Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok kept Cuzz out of his jungle. Through the match, Cuzz was unable to recover from these early setbacks and that affected the rest of his team.

In the top lane, Kim “Khan” Dong-ha’s Fiora made Rascal irrelevant and split pushed comfortably. While the rest of the team fought, Khan broke through Kingzone’s turrets and almost finished the game on his own.

In the end, a baron buff gave SKT the final edge and the push to close the series.