SK Telecom T1 rolls over Damwon Gaming in LCK playoffs

William Davis Published 25/08/2019

SK Telecom T1’s victory over Damwon Gaming was a two-for-one deal.

The popular organization punched its ticket to the 2019 LCK Summer Finals and the 2019 League of Legends World Championship.

What many expected to be a competitive series ended up being a massacre, as SKT ran through Damwon Gaming with little trouble. The squad is looking stronger than ever as it looks to lock up its second consecutive split championship.

Khan takes the back door

Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok started game one with a solo kill in the mid lane and made Heo “ShowMaker” Su irrelevant in the match.

Damwon couldn’t do anything versus Faker and SKT had priority in the bottom lane. They turned their attention to the top lane in the match between Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon and Kim “Khan” Dong-ha.

Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu and Nuguri killed Khan twice but a crucial mistake from Canyon reversed their fortunes. The jungler ran away from Kim “Clid” Tae-min through the lane thinking the minions would get the turret aggro. The miscalculation turned into a kill for Khan and the advantage was gone just like that.

Damwon found two kills that could have turned the tide a bit, but SKT countered with a cheeky play. The five players hid inside a bush and waited for Damwon players to walk nearby. The play turned into an ace and the first baron of the game.

SKT grew a significant advantage but had issues closing out the game. The final fight took place inside the baron pit where SKT went for a four-on-five engagement.

While it had the look of a risky play, it instead proved to be genius as Khan went off on his own and backdoored SKT to victory.

Khan wins the game… Again

Clid and Faker partnered up in the early goings of game two and helped SKT accrue a significant gold advantage. The tempo of the game slowed down in the mid game, as the teams were more patient and looked for items before the inevitable team fights.

Damwon, despite some questionable decisions, punished SKT’s mistakes. They managed to turn fights around and got some of their confidence back. SKT was caught out of position multiple times, which turned into a baron buff for Damwon.

Unfortunately, the baron was not enough for Damwon to break SKT’s base. As the game moved into the later stages, SKT’s lineup slowly out-scaled Damwon. On Damwon’s side, only Sin “Nuclear” Jeong-hyeon and Showmaker were relevant by the time of the third baron spawn.

After losing one too many team fights and allowing SKT to take one inhibitor, Damwon was desperate. The team tried to ignore the baron on SKT and brute force a win through the mid lane. Park “Teddy” Jin-seong on Varus was a lethal force for SKT throughout the game and helped SKT out-work Damwon late.

SKT once again drew Damwon into a fight that served as a distraction for a Khan backdoor play. Lightning struck the same place twice and SKT advanced to match point.

SKT destroys Damwon’s confidence at level one

Game three was decided at level one. SKT grouped to invade the enemy jungle and pounced on Nuguri, giving Khan first blood. In a crafty move, SKT hung around the jungle and the Damwon players walked into the same trap for the second kill of the game. Two minutes later, Khan got a solo kill in the top lane.

The game was as good as over at that point.

Clid moved to the top lane to get yet another kill and then took over the bottom lane. By 10 minutes, SKT had 10 kills and a 6,000 gold advantage.

Lee “Effort” Sang-ho on Pyke only made things worse for Damwon. The bone skewers from Effort were precise, and he served the enemies up on a silver platter.

Damwon ran out of options quickly. They wanted to go for the infernal dragon but only walked into their deaths.

SKT didn’t slow down, as they played around the objectives and got themselves three infernal dragons on top of the mountains of gold. SKT secured the first baron uncontested and marched into Damwon’s base.

Khan was on split pushing duty and the team played the last minutes of the game as safely as possible. There was nothing Damwon could do as SKT aced the enemy one more time and closed the game with 27 kills.

SKT will face Griffin next.

William Davis

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