Gen.G begin their summer with a win over KINGZONE DragonX

Gen.G found their first win of the Summer Split tonight with a crushing victory over Spring Split champions KINGZONE DragonX.

Tonight’s opening bout was surrounded with questions. With KINGZONE jungler Han “Peanut” Wang-ho and Gen.G duo lane Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in away for the last week to compete in the 2018 Asian Games qualifier, it was unknown how prepared these two teams were for patch 8.11.

But as the match began, it seemed to be KINGZONE who had better acclimated to the new wacky patch. While Gen.G drafted a more nostalgic protect the Kog’Maw composition, KINGZONE had opted for the popular bruiser bot lane with Mordekaiser. And with the help of jungler Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan’s early pressure from ganks, KINGZONE’s early game composition quickly snowballed.

With only a Guinsoo’s Rageblade to his name, Ruler’s Kog’Maw had nowhere near enough damage to prevent a KINGZONE with Mordekaiser’s ghost Dragon from taking the Baron, and shortly after—the game.

With the knowledge that late game compositions have no place in the current meta, Gen.G quickly adapted their strategy for the rest of the series. Gen.G substituted in Kang “Haru” Min-seung, the team’s more aggressive jungler, and built their game two composition around him—a risk which pulled off.

Haru abused the early game weakness of Cuzz’s Nocturne, and thus found countless kills for his laners through uncontested ganks as Camille. By the time Cuzz’s Nocturne had reached level six, the jungler had nowhere to safely use his paranoia.

Gen.G’s early game dominance continued into game three. Gen.G were able to stop KINGZONE’s attempt at a three minute five man dive top lane, and took an ace and a mountain of gold as a reward. Gen.G used that gold to repeatedly find picks, which in turn kept increasing the team’s net worth. Unable to contest the continuously roaming Gen.G players, KINGZONE fell further and further behind until their Nexus finally crumbled.

With their first win of the new split out of the way, Gen.G will have a day off before they return to Summoner’s Rift on June 15, when they face SK Telecom T1.