Afreeca Freecs have all but punched their LCK playoff ticket after a 2-1 victory over SK Telecom T1 earlier today, ending the former world champions’ four match win streak.
After SKT’s win against second place team Gen.G late last week, fans could be optimistic. Fans began praising SKT for the benching of longtime mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, and even suggested NA LCS team TSM try the same idea in regards to Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg.
Up in the clouds with their four-match hotstreak in tow, SKT were brought back down to earth by Afreeca today—but not immediately.
SKT started their bout versus Afreeca with a convincing game one win. SKT top laner Park “Thal” Kwon-hyuk had an outstanding performance on Kennen, with engages that reminded viewers of Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho in 2016.
Although Afreeca managed to secure a Baron they frankly had no business taking in the first place, Thal quickly rectified his team’s mistake with a five man slicing maelstrom.
Sadly for SKT though, their dominant play didn’t persist for the rest of the series. Instead, Afreeca were the ones to step up their play and become this match’s early game leaders.
Between the engages of Afreeca jungler Lee “Mowgli” Jae-ha, and Afreeca’s solo laners ability to instantly output damage onto the targeted SKT players, Afreeca found many early picks. That propelled them to victory.
That’s not to say that Afreeca’s two game wins were cleanly played out. SKT jungler Kang “Blank” Sun-gu stole the Baron from Afreeca not once, but twice over the course of this best-of-three series. But instead of be the tool which allowed SKT to make their comeback, all those stolen Barons did was extend two all but won games.
Afreeca will end their seventh week of the LCK Summer Split on Aug. 5, when they play Hanwha Life Esports.
