Another week of action, another week of thoughts going forward. As the LCK standings begin settling down and the landscape of where each of the ten teams stands continues to develop, what will the future of the LCK hold for these teams? 

Clash of Titans

Along with the three teams that started the season on top, one more team has joined the fray in T1. With wins over both Gen.G and DragonX, T1 has continued to look better and better, especially with top laner Kim “Canna” Chang-dong having taken over the starting duty over Kim “Roach” Kang-hui. While they officially sit at 2nd place in the standings, Gen.G currently holds the top spot with a better game record. In the case of Gen.G, it continues to be a case of dominance across the map. One player that has stood out the most and has silenced all the doubt has been mid laner Gwak “Bdd” Bo-seong. After a disappointing season with KT Rolster, Bdd has shown that he is still easily one of the best mid laners in Korea as he currently sits at the top of the league with five player of the game honors. 

Meanwhile, sitting just below T1 and Gen.G is Afreeca Freecs and DragonX, both teams that have shown some issues recently. For Afreeca, the previously mentioned issues have taken place as players like Song “Fly” Yong-jun have begun struggling. Meanwhile, DragonX’s young team has shown signs of struggling with the team’s mentality in their losses against T1 and Gen.G.

While the four teams are still fairly close together in the standings, it will be interesting to see which team will be able to distance themselves in the standings. This is especially important to keep an eye on as they approach the second half of the split.

Everybody Gets a Win (And a Loss While You’re at It)!

In the span of a single week, the 18-0 and 0-18 dreams have all been shattered. With DragonX’s 0-2 week and APK Prince beating KT Rolster, who in turn picked up the upset victory over Afreeca Freecs, every team in the league has a loss and win now. While it’s not a sign of the league becoming more competitive across the board, it does show that the bottom tier teams aren’t as weak as originally expected. 

For APK, the issue continues to be a simple case of decision making, as the players have shown that they’re capable of keeping up against some of the top players in the region. Had APK been able to clean up their decision making, they could have had much more wins than their single victory.

Meanwhile for KT, their path to victory requires their top laners and junglers to perform well no matter who is starting. As seen in their series against Afreeca, if the whole team is able to perform well then the team is able to compete against the best. 

Still Nothing Back to Normal

As the number of cases for the Coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, continues to increase in Korea (now the most infected country outside of China), the LoL Park continues to be closed off to fans during matches. Along with the announcement that announcer  Kim Min-ah was sent to the hospital due to a fever, the LCK is continuing to take as many safety precautions as possible.

While it’s reassuring that the safety and health of the players and staff is being put into account, the virus continues to bring a lot of concerns for the Asian scene. From LPL still not resuming any time soon to the questions regarding what this could mean for the international tournaments of the season, these types of concerns will also slowly become a bigger concern in Korea as well.

Regardless of what happens, hopefully everyone in Korea, China and around the world will be able to stay safe and healthy.

To watch League of Legends tournaments, visit watch.na.lolesports.com. For more information on the Split, teams, standings and players, visit www.lolesports.com. Recaps of former weeks and other LoL content can be found at https://thegamehaus.com/league-of-legends/.

Featured image courtesy of LCK Flickr.

Follow Us

You can like The Game Haus on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles

Follow Rui on Twitter @ruixu38