[OGN] Preseason Tournament

Faker-senpai, impact and SKT S' bot lane will likely continue to do what they do whether it is being the greatest mid in the world or the nine to five workman of the top lane. Which leaves bengi up in the air, to put it lightly season four ended up being a bad time. A new jungle however is a new start, if bengi wants to start his revival it'd better be here in the new jungle otherwise he should be scared for his career as players like procxin and swift are still looking for a team.

So we have zentjin and casper with a bunch of complete newcomers. Zentjin and casper I feel like are two players who are yet to fulfill their potential, a mediocre mid lane and terrible top held him and oldB back from becoming true competitors while I feel like casper was cut from SKT before his time. While the rookies are well, complete rookies nobody knows what they're gonna do. Perhaps I'm wrong on zentjin and capser, perhaps they are not destined for greatness. Maybe samsung will crash and burn and they'll RIP. Whatever happens it's sure to be interesting

Shy is still solid,but his time of dominating top lane and carrying is long gone; ambition jungle is a wildcard and space prison pls. The picture painted is a team that is destined to struggle. So we're left with coco in the mid lane, another player who many saw incredible potential in with many great performances punctuated by throws and many failures. But ultimately it's on him to carry as his team mates are unlikely to and he doesn't have his pet jungler swift around now so he'll have to do it for himself. It's very likely the greatest legacy in Korean LoL's future rests solely on coco's shoulders. No pressure mate.

So rookie/kakao are gone and the husk of KTB has been attached to ssumday and the bot lane. Where does KT rolster go from here? Nagne seems to have been a bust, he's failed to recapture the form of beating up faker on gragas at worlds and has continued a steady descent into mediocrity. He's failed to prove otherwise pretty much every the time. Arrow meanwhile continues with his attempts figure out what CS is and hachani is trying to figure out if he's mata or dada. So we're left with ssumday, occasionally he can truly shine. He had an incredible riven performance in the finals and some looper worthy TPs on maokai but with rookie and kakao on KTA before he's never been put in the role to hard carry. It's time for ssumday to put up, he's an OGN champion and it's now or never to show he's worthy to be one.

I wanted to highlight save but Chinese billions are too much so instead let's highlight ggoong. Now first of all why not ohq you ask? Because ohq is not worth talking about, he's amazing, he can only get better. He's fast on the road to becoming the greatest ADC not just in Korea but possibly the world that's uninteresting. So let's talk about ggoong and his struggle to recapture his spring form. When leblanc and AP nid were on top of the meta ggoong seemed like a player who was going to become a champion. Sadly that didn't happen as samsung blue surprised many and he's failed to bring any champ except zed to the level he had before. Still like bengi new season, new opportunities. After a to be frank pathetic showing against OMG and overall middling showings at worlds and regionals without zed najin still decided to keep him over the rock solid kuro. Ggoong has to show something new otherwise he risks falling behind, when ggoong is on ggoong champs he's wonderful. Sadly there doesn't seem to be that many ggoong champions left.

So the samsung duo and kakao have gone to China to make mad billionaire bank, the title of Korean jungle King is now up for grabs but who's going to take it? Bengi? Wisdom? Watch? Nah the new jungle overlord is going to be realfoxy. You know the player who was a contender for the worst jungler ever in OGN back on falcons. Well something happened when he joined stealths and switched his tag to chaser as he has been awe-inspiring. He is one of the few junglers who can claim to have legitimately bodied spirit, he's a wild jungler who never stops piling on the aggression even with stereotypically passive laners on stealths. He feels like the heir to insec no one ever asked for. But he's smarter, there's no sense of wild abandon and plays that seem silly turn into master-strokes in his hands. Chaser isn't just my player to highlight from Jin Air he's my highlight player of all of Korea. Start hyping chaser right now so you can feel smarter than everyone.

I tried to focus on players that may not entirely be on everyone's radar looking the rosters but I couldn't focus on anyone else. Frozen is a brilliant control mage player whether he's dunking samsung blue with lux or making his sister team cry with ziggs frozen's mastery of the mages is fantastic. Sadly there comes the caveat, he has yet to show any notable assassin play. Champions like zed and ahri are important to any mid laner's pool and he's yet to demonstrate proficiency at either of them. He's already attempted assassins with a frankly rubbish leblanc performance against huya tigers and a mediocre ahri against xenics. The former of which was bailed by s0nstar deciding that he's suddenly gonna solo carry. Frozen is the star of IM still by a significant margin, if anyone is gonna turn IM from dead meat into a legitimate dark horse it's gonna be him. But as said he needs to show new dimensions, lux and ziggs aren't around and a distinct lack of zed is alarming for any midlaner.

So smeb is suddenly achieving his full potential held back by IM while kuro and gorilla were two players that were gonna do great things on najin. This leaves us with pray and lee. Both have been subject to heavy scrutiny and pray's corki build in particular against IM was a massive point of criticism. Lee's put in some decent work in qualifiers but pray felt like he got carried. Pray dropped off the face of the earth when najin decided to drop him and he's yet to show anything to make najin regret that decision. There's still a long season ahead for pray to prove he can be an elite ADC of Korea again. But it feels like a long road, with bright talents like kuro, gorilla and smeb on his team he has few excuses. This is either going to be pray's redemption or damnation. Either he'll show to everyone that he can be great, that he can perform or he'll remind everyone why he fell into obscurity for so long.