SK Telecom T1 duo Kim “Clid” Tae-min and Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok are taking over the Korean ladder ahead of the 2019 League of Legends World Championship.
On stream, Faker promised that he would climb in the Korean server until he reached the number one rank. So far, SKT’s mid laner is looking to keep his promise. Faker has been putting in the hours and right now is the highest-ranked mid laner in Korea.
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At the moment, Faker is ranked in fourth place and Clid is in the eighth. The mid/jungle duo is on everyone’s mind ahead of Worlds. Clid is considered one of the best junglers in the world and a catalyst for SKT.
After missing Worlds in 2018, Faker is out for blood. The legendary player wants to recover his throne and proved to everyone that last years’ results, which saw zero LCK teams among the final four teams in the semifinals, are not a true reflection of the LCK’s level of play.
North America, Europe, and China were all represented. Korea was not.
Faker has been trying a broad variety of champions in the mid lane, including Galio and Ezreal. Galio fell off the meta after the nerf in Patch 9.14, as changes removed Galio’s ability to flash while channeling his stun. That simple modification was enough for Galio to disappear completely from professional play. Now, Faker wants to bring it back.
Ezreal in the mid lane is another interesting pick. Ezreal is considered a self-sufficient bot laner, meaning that he doesn’t need to have a support by his side for the entire laning phase. Thanks to the Arcane Shift ability, Ezreal can escape from tricky situations without burning his flash. Ezreal is following in the footsteps of Tristana and Vayne, two bot lane champions that migrated to other lanes.
Clid continues to play mainly Elise and Lee Sin. The most recent addition to his champion pool seems to be Ekko. This mid lane champion received changes in recent patches that made him more viable in the jungle at the top level of play.
Faker and Clid will play the opening match at the League of Legend World Championship main event versus Fnatic on October 12.
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