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When the dust settled this past Sunday, SKT once again stood victorious on the international stage with another MSI trophy to add to their already bulging trophy case. SKT were the heavy favorites going into the tournament with their dominance of the strongest League of Legends region in the LCK and their current standing as the 2016 World Champions. Throughout the tournament, no team really seemed to challenge the Koreans although there were many signs of brilliance from their opponents.
Group Stages
SKT went through the first half of the group stages undefeated, and started off strong with a 5-0 record. Their first defeat would come at the hands of Flash Wolves, with a stunning one sided victory. The Flash Wolves dominated both the kill score as well as the objective game to hand the infallible looking SKT their first loss at MSI.
A quick win over TSM and G2 gave SKT a 7-1 record and securing their spot as first place in the group stages, earning themselves the top seed in the knockouts. Their final game was against the Chinese team, World Elite, and once again they were made to look mortal. However, that could be explained off as a game with no significant impact on the tournament due to both teams already having their spots locked in. The slow, methodical style of WE allowed them to grind out objectives and kills against SKT and a surprise Lucian mid pick contributed to the Chinese team’s win.
Knockouts
SKT’s opponents for the semifinals were the Flash Wolves, historically known as the Korean killers due to their impressive record against the strongest region in the world. However, the Flash Wolves were completely shut down by SKT and despite a closer first game, the last two were a complete wipeout. On the other side of the tournament bracket, G2 performed well to take down WE in a 3-1 fashion.
In the finals, SKT took on Europe’s G2 to determine who would hoist the MSI trophy. SKT struck first with the first win, mostly in part due to Peanut going on a legendary killing spree. G2’s Perkz performed admirably in the first game, solo-killing and taking down SKT’s Faker multiple times. In the second game, G2 struck back, snowballing their early lead to a win. The final two games weren’t much to talk about as SKT stormed ahead in both to take down G2 in a 3-1 win.