DAMWON Gaming is advancing to the semifinals in the 2020 World Championship after taking down fellow LCK squad DRX.
DAMWON did it again. The LCK summer champion took down DRX on a series that ended with a clean 3-0 score. DAMWON is moving forward in the competition, while DRX is heading back home. There were no surprises in this match, not even how easy it was for DAMWON to destabilize DRX at every turn.
DAMWON is one of the teams at Worlds with the best early game. The Korean squad doesn’t go for crazy invades at level one, but instead prefers to place vision and enter the lanes safely. The DAMWON machinery gets into motion five minutes into the game. At this point, it’s common to see support Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee roaming to the mid lane and looking for a kill opportunity.
Despite not having his support by his side, Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun still manages to stay even in farm and create pressure in the bottom lane. BeryL’s early roaming forces the opponent support to try match up his moves on the map. Ryu “Keria” Min-seok attempted to shadow BeryL, but he couldn’t do it and have the same impact.
In the meantime, Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu is running around the map creating pressure. Canyon is not a jungler that camps a lane, he is constantly moving, looking for opportunities but never forcing the fights. In this particular series, Canyon focused on getting control of the neutral objectives, which ended up giving DAMWON the win.
It wasn’t a completely one-sided series. At times, DRX took control of the game and amassed small, but significant advantages. In those moments, DAMWON just waited patiently for the opponent to make mistakes. DAMWON’s patience paid off and managed to turn the game around with ease. It happened in every match of the series.
DAMWON stayed proactive throughout the series and focused on the macro play, securing the vision control. It wasn’t the team fighting heavy style that DAMWON showed in the group stage, but instead a more controlled style.
The fact that DAMWON let DRX take control of the game at times is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it shows how well DAMWON understood its opponent. DAMWON is one of, if not the only, team at Worlds that can adapt to the opponent and change its playstyle accordingly.
This is the end of the season for DRX, a disappointing one.
“I’m quite disappointed in myself throughout this year. I am thankful to my teammates but I’m sorry I couldn’t give them the best results,” DRX bot laner Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu said in the post-game press conference.
The future for the players and the organization is yet to be revealed. In 2021, the LCK is transitioning into a franchised model and the teams are yet to be revealed.
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