KT Rolster One Win Away from First Place Finish
KT Rolster is on the verge of securing first place in the regular split after an impressive victory against Hanwha Life Esports.
Today’s match between Hanwha and KT had significant implications for the playoffs. A win for Hanwha would have secured their spot in the post-season. On the other hand, KT needed a 2-0 victory against Hanwha to continue their quest for first place.
Unfortunately for Hanwha, they not only lost to KT today, but also failed to secure a single game win. As a result, the Afreeca Freecs only need to beat the Jin Air Green Wings, the LCK’s eighth place team, on Aug. 8 to snatch away the final playoff spot from Hanwha.
Although today’s loss was a setback for Hanwha, it wasn’t entirely hopeless. They started the series evenly matched with KT, trading kills and objectives. However, their downfall came at a fateful encounter in the Baron pit, a common turning point in professional League of Legends matches.
KT’s top laner, Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho, made an incredible play on his signature champion, Kennen. He landed a five-man slicing maelstrom on Hanwha at Baron, giving KT the momentum needed to dominate not only game one, but the entire series.
Building on Smeb’s heroic play, KT outplayed Hanwha in all three lanes in game two and had a clear understanding of Hanwha jungler Yoon “SeongHwan” Seong-hwan’s pathing. KT snowballed their leads to the point where the game resembled a solo-queue match rather than a professional LCK game. By 24 minutes, KT had a 12,000 gold lead and appeared to be toying with Hanwha before finally closing out the game.
With Hanwha now defeated, KT only needs to win 2-0 against MVP on Aug. 9 to finish the regular season in first place and secure a direct seed into the playoff finals.