Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok said he was confused by the ROX Tigers‘ drafting when they picked both Cho’Gath and Maokai in Game 1 of Friday’s League Champions Korea match.
SK Telecom T1 continued to rebound after its recent four game losing streak by handily defeating ROX 2-0 on Friday. As one of the MVPs of the match, Faker was asked during the post-match interview with OGN casters Kim “Dangun” Eui-joong and Lee “CloudTemplar” Hyun-woo how ROX’s odd draft affected SKT.
“I knew that they were both good for the current meta, but I didn’t think they would pick both in the same game,” he said. “We couldn’t tell who was top and who was jungle until the game started, so it was slightly puzzling. I was puzzled but our top and jungle didn’t say much.”
ROX continued to display drafting shenanigans against SKT in Game 2, perhaps hoping to catch the team off guard. ROX chose Cho’Gath, Maokai, and Gragas with Maokai ultimately being the support choice. The match’s other MVP, Bae “Bang” Jun-sik, said he was also rather confused about what to expect and even considered Gragas could be the support.
The support drafting of ROX — and many competitive teams — has launched a resurgence of tanky support picks after the bottom lane has been dominated by aggressive laning ranged supports for some time. Bang gave his two cents on why that is the case, and how the jungle meta has a lot to do with it.
“I think (Maokai and Gragas) both good as supports, since Doran’s Shield is still a thing, and many junglers with high gank potential are in the meta,” he said. “If you pick a long ranged support, there are many times when you can’t make aggressive plays because you have to keep in mind of ganks. On top of that tank supports are more prominent in the late game, so I think that’s why tank supports are all the rage.”
This marks the second time the two carries of SKT have been acknowledged as the MVPs of the match in two days, and both Faker and Bang said they were rather happy with the team’s performance on Friday. The positive feelings indicated some upward motion in team morale after the four match losing streak that bewildered the reigning world champions.
“I think we’re doing better than how we did when we had the losing streak, so I’m happy about that,” Faker said.
Cover photo courtesy of Riot Games