KT Fixer – The Mechanic KT Needed

KT had a disastrous start to the season, not managing to win a set for the first five weeks of the tournament and only picking up their first win in week 6 against Jin Air.  The team was struggling to find a true carry for the team, with Nagne faltering to show off his mechanical prowess and Arrow constantly losing to his lane opponent it wasn’t looking good for KT. The one struggling more than those two however was Hachani, the championship winning support who used look like an absolute monster at times had fallen off hard in this new season. When the second half of the season came around Hachani decided to take a break from competitive league, so KT brought in their sub support Fixer to fill the spot.  Could a new support re-ignite this team? – well not in his first week because KT got crushed by Najin in a 2-0 series.  However Fixer and the team started to show improvement in week 8, managing to pick up a game 2 win against SKT with a more aggressive comp and fixer playing Leona. They faced another top team the next week in CJ, another chance for KT to show off their improvements. KT got crushed easily by CJ in the first game of the series and it wasn’t looking like the KT that showed up in the second match against SKT last week had arrived in the studio that day, but then in the second game they arrived and Fixer well…unleashed his inner madlife

The draft phase was good for KT, they had locked in a heavy engage comp that played to their strength perfectly; Nidalee, Vi, Lissandra, Sivir and Thresh.  The game started off with a lane swap and nothing really happened up until around 5 minutes in when Nagne and Ssumday dived Shy under the bot lane tower which netted themselves the pick they needed to secure dragon. Arrow and Fixer rotated down to the dragon pit to further secure the objective. Meanwhile Coco stood in the wings, clearing a pink ward in the river brush when out of nowhere the sound of chains echoed in his ears and Fixer had got his first victim. The team completely exploded Coco following Fixer’s hook. The game continued on and the next dragon eventually came around again, this time CJ were prepared for it and managed to get the dragon with a kill on top of it for Coco’s Leblanc in exchange for a death on Madlife.  Coco ran off after getting his kill, Fixer and Nagne chased after him hoping to get something back. It was too late however as Coco had gotten a sizable distance away from them. But wait, The sound of chains echoed in his ears once again. A stylish flash death sentence into box and flay once again sent Coco to the grey screen. Fixer was not in love with da’ coco this game. The game continued with hook after hook after hook from Fixer and KT eventually ending the game out with a teamfight in the top lane.  CJ would have nightmares about Fixers Thresh, it was scary, he was scary.

Unfortunately for KT, they lost the next game to end the series a 2-1 loss with CJ picking Thresh away from fixer in the final game.  This wasn’t a bad result for KT however because this now solidified that this team could compete with the top teams in the league and that match against SKT wasn’t just a fluke. KT’s good form would continue throughout the week, beating Samsung 2-0 in a dominating fashion and Fixer posting scores of 1/0/7 and 0/1/12 on thresh and getting an MVP for game 2. The real test would come in the next week however, when they came up against an 11-0 undefeated GE Tigers.  In the first match of the series GE banned out Fixer’s thresh and forced him onto his 0-3 Janna. GE played a nice game and PraY picked up 100 MVP points for his Urgot play. In the second game GE did not ban out Fixer’s Thresh, instead opting to ban out Lissandra, Leblanc and Rek’sai. Bad idea GE…with thresh locked in, KT were able to play their aggressive, team-fighting game and picked up the win. This Thresh is not something that you can let KT have, so obviously GE banned it in the final game of the series.  This game Fixer brought out Annie, a champion we had yet to see him on.  This was the time for Fixer to show off his true strength as a playmaking support. Fixer and Score constantly roamed around the map getting picks and kills to give KT a huge lead dominating GE’s early game weaknesses. In the teamfight phase of the game where GE excel the most Fixer had great flash-tibbers engages to completely nullify GE’s great team-fighting skills. GE could not escape this terrifying Annie and KT would take the set 2-1. They had now done it, they had beaten a top team. Fixer had stepped up, and he brought the whole team up with him.

KT now look like one of the top teams in Korea, unfortunately they were not able to get into the play-offs this season due to their poor start but looking into the next season KT will be strong competitors for the championship title. Their new aggressive style with Fixer making amazing plays and engages is something that teams should be scared to play against. This week’s match against IM should be another chance for KT to continue to assert their dominance by beating up on the weakest team in the region. Thresh is a must ban against KT for IM to be able to have a chance to win, but even then Fixer is incredibly scary on Annie and Leona. It’s looking like an easy 2-0 win for KT with this transformed squad.

Fixer has not fixed KT. He’s upgraded them.