The LCK Spring Split Playoffs continue on Sunday when KT Rolster and the Afreeca Freecs square off with a spot in the Grand Final on the line. KT Rolster looked great last week in ending SK Telecom T1’s hopes of running the gauntlet and are the favorite heading into this match-up. The winner will face Kingzone DragonX next week for all the marbles.
LCK Spring Split Playoffs Betting Odds (Courtesy of BetDSI)
KT Rolster -180
Afreeca Freecs +155
History
Afreeca and KT split their two regular season meetings with Afreeca winning 2-1 back in Week 1 and KT evening the series in the last match of the regular season.
It’s hard to take anything out of those earlier series though. The Week 1 meeting was all the way back in January before major patches changed the meta, and neither team wanted to reveal too much in the finale. It was already decided that Afreeca would be the No. 2 seed and KT would be the No. 3, so neither side put too much into the match.
Match-up to Watch
KT’s Ucal and Afreeca’s Kuro have been two of the most impressive mid laners in Korea this year.
Kuro ended up in a three-way tie for second place for Spring Split MVP, and his development has been a huge reason why Afreeca had such a surprisingly good split. He was able to empower his team on a number of teamfighting specialists, leading to Afreeca winning in the late game and smashing the Nexus. Kuro’s ability to control a game no matter which champion he was playing was huge. His best performances came on Azir though, and he had a 8.8 KDA on the champion.
No one expected Ucal to emerge as KT’s starting mid laner. PawN is considered one of the top mid laners in the world, but he has essentially ceded his starting spot to Ucal at this point. He was very good in the regular season and showed his mettle last week against Faker. Ucal was great on Taliyah, and played well on Swain and Azir to help lead his team to a win over SKT.
Key Player
One of the biggest questions coming into the season for Afreeca revolved around their new top laner. It was time for Marin to move on, but no one knew what to make of Kiin. He had only been a starting top laner for one split, and that was with Ever8 Winners. Ever8 was awful during the 2017 Summer Split and were relegated down to Contenders, so it was hard to know how Kiin would perform with little quality experience.
Kiin has held his own pretty well. Afreeca has put trust in him by giving him late game scaling champions to use like Gangplank, and he has performed well. He’s not just a top laner that sits on a tank as his teammates ask him not to die. Kiin will be tested by one of the best top laners in the world in this series in Smeb.
Prediction
It’s not often that you see the team that finished with a better record in the regular season as an underdog. Normally, I would be inclined to trust Afreeca’s regular season success, but I think KT is going to take this one rather convincingly. Finally defeating the team that has haunted them takes a lot of pressure off their shoulders. It looked like Score and Smeb were relieved to finally slay the SKT dragon, and that newfound confidence will shine through.
Outcome: KT Rolster wins the series 3-0 and advances to face Kingzone DragonX in the Grand Final
