Today’s League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals match-up was between KT Rolster and KOO Tigers, two top Korean teams. Korea is the strongest region in the world for League eSports, so the games were incredibly close. KT Rolster ended up losing the fourth and final game because of a bad call to take Baron.
Twenty six minutes into the fourth game, KT and KOO were still closely matched. KOO had one more dragon kill than KT, but the game could clearly go either way. And for a moment, it seemed like it was going to tilt in KT’s favour. They managed to pick off KOO’s Kuro, who was playing the champion Viktor — an armoured mech-type dude with a powerful death ray attack.
Going 4-v-5 gave KT some confidence — enough that they decided to try and snag baron while Kuro was still down and out of the fight. KOO hovered around to the right of Baron while KT started to attack it.
But there was a problem with their positioning. Piccaboo was separated from the rest of his team.
(Editor’s note: there is not anything inappropriate hidden underneath that Kotaku fish, weekend editor Mike Fahey just happens to be the only one with photoshop and he likes to fuck with me.)
To try and get to them, he moved around the bottom-right corner of the baron pit. This also meant that he ran headfirst into KOO:
KOO made quick work of Piccaboo. But the beating wasn’t done for KT. They’d all run in to try and save Piccaboo. Once he was dead, they tried to make a 180 degree turn and run in the opposite direction. But KOO caught another one of them as they tried to flee:
With two down, KOO knew that KT Rolster wouldn’t being to survive a direct fight. That meant they could take Baron with little risk of KT stealing it. And so they did:
The reason teams kill Baron in League of Legends, in case you don’t know, is because the beast awards you a massive power boost that helps your team push aggressively into the enemy base. A key part of Baron’s advantage is that it charges up any minions in the immediate vicinity of a Baron-powered champion — hence the pushing advantage.
Now with a clear lead and the Baron kill to back them up, KOO went for another Dragon to give them yet another power boost:
With both Dragon and Baron, KOO went for KT’s base. KT still put up a fight, but KOO nonetheless managed to puncture a hold in the bottom-right of KT’s last line of defences:
After that it was just a matter of time before KOO finished the game.
Here’s a full clip of the fateful play:
And the replay that Riot’s shoutcasters did right after:
GG, KT Rolster. You had a pretty great run this year.
KOO’s win against KT Rolster finishes the Worlds quarterfinals. Next up are the semifinals, which will be played first between Korean powerhouse team SKT and European newcomer Origen, then between KOO and Fnatic, who trounced their quarterfinals opponents yesterday.
These next two match-ups decide who will be in the finals. They’re both also bound to be interesting games:
Worlds starts again this coming Saturday, October 24th, at 10:30 AM. We’ll be there to keep you abreast of all the most important League eSports news.
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