History repeats itself as Samsung Galaxy and SK Telecom face off once again on the Worlds stage. When they met last year, the finals went the full five games with SKT just eking out the victory, but while some things have changed, some have stayed the same. From CoreJJ to CuVee, these are the same players that pushed SKT so hard a year ago, but SKT has a new jungler and a new top laner, and on top of that, their veteran bot lane has looked somewhat weak this year. For SSG, it is a complete rematch, a chance to once again take victory, but for SKT, it is a mixture, and a fight to constantly prove they should stay at the top.

If we have learned anything in 2017, it’s that Faker is not immovable. The game against the Misfits saw him clearly frustrated at how many times he was picked off and how easily SKT was sometimes defeated. Against Royal Never Give Up, Faker was tilted even more than he was against Misfits as Xiaohu got a solo kill against him. Since SKT has so strongly relied on Faker as an initiator, if he tilts, so too does the entire team, especially as he tries to carry more of the games on his back.

It is here that Samsung Galaxy could find their greatest success. SKT has already shown that their drafting is very specific to the teams in which they play, so out-drafting SKT seems unlikely (unless you’re Misfits). What we could see is an SSG that focuses on taking out the backbone of SKT through Faker. This year, he has seemed particularly susceptible to pressure, and the pressure has most definitely been on him to carry home a fourth win for SKT on the Worlds stage. Especially with how strong CuVee has been, SSG might just crack the SKT defenses.

What to expect:
A lot of people are expecting to see SSG draft a Malzahar to lock down Faker. Crown already used it to great effect against Team WE, essentially destroying their carry potential on Twitch, so the strength that SKT have shown around their mid-lane could be disrupted by Malzahar or other picks designed to attack Faker. But more than that, CuVee is almost certainly going to win the top lane. He has shown himself to be the most dominant top lane at all of Worlds, even adapting to use Team WE’s own strategies against them. If anyone is going to push hard on SKT, we expect it to be him.

Out of SKT, we might see more of what we saw in the LCK when SSG was crushed in a 3-0 victory for SKT. In their match-ups, SKT time and again drafted AD heavy teams with Faker on Lucian for two of their games and on Fizz for the third. Bang was also instrumental in their previous wins against SSG, but his less than stellar plays at Worlds might make that success hard to duplicate. It’s hard to tell if this isn’t one of the reasons behind SKT’s recent Galio centric picks. It could be about the Worlds meta, but it could also be about the fatigue of the team and necessity for Faker to carry. If they are showing fatigue, they will rely on Faker to bring it home. If their confidence is high, we are expecting heavy damaging comps out of them to take out SSG.