SK Telecom showed their resilience and dominance in game 3 of their quarterfinals matchup against AHQ. Game 3 showed in the pick and ban phase that both teams didn't have the wave clear to push lanes quickly, but that they need to get picks and skirmishes and reate kills. SKT is normally great at this idea but they did struggle a bit. Now, can this struggle hurt them in the future? This writer doubts it.
SK Telecom T1 (Blue Side)
Fiora, Elise, Kassadin, Tristana, Tahm Kench
AHQ (Red Side)
Darius, Reksai, Fizz, Kalista, Thresh
Bang snagged first blood after Wolf got Thresh stunned and a teleport from Faker help complete the kill. Faker actually did get solo killed by Westdoor in lane.
AHQ grabbed a gold lead at 20 minutes but SKT continued to rotate well, dominate objectives, and a quality fight toward river next to baron got Bang a 4th kill, Faker his 1st kill, and SKT a gold lead. AHQ then answers back catching MaRin out of position and getting picks.
SKT would close the game out behind an incredible effort out of Bang on Tristana.
SKT might have gotten a little confident up 2-0 in the series, so we shouldn't sit here and act like SKT can actually lose a series. SKT should dominate the rest of the tournament but Faker may second guess playing Kassadin again. He could have played other champions that could have done fine in this game, but he flexed the Kassadin pick and luckily for him he did get to the point where his Kassadin build could scale and be a force, and he also had Bang be dominant on Tristana.
Now, SKT will go to face Origen in the semifinals next weekend. Origen has their hands full but good news for them is that they have solid rotations and can make an attempt at neutralizing SKT's incredible play-calls. The one issue this writer has is how SoaZ can handle MaRin. MaRin on paper should complately dominate SoaZ and it could mean lane swaps or MaRin will just take over the series. Tomorrow, EDG and Fnatic play each other in their best of 5!