ROX Tigers' 2-1 win over Ever8 Winners on Tuesday in Seoul, South Korea during the first day of Week 4 was as sloppy as can be, but a win is a win in the League of Legends Champions Korea.
Ever8 Winners came hot out of the gates in Game 1, with jungler Kim "Malrang" Geun-seong's Elise picking up first blood to snowball out of control. With a 3,700-gold lead at just nine minutes through first tower, first blood, and five other kills, Ever8 looked to be in complete control, but stalled in the mid game. Despite getting a 27-minute Baron, EEW almost threw the game with a horrendously bad call that gave ROX a 4-for-0 fight and Baron kill, but ROX was too far behind to do anything with it. In the end, EEW mid laner Park "Cepted" Wi-rim's Lucian decimated ROX in late game teamfights, dealing a game-high 26,800 damage to enemy champions as EEW took Game 1 in 41 minutes.
Heating up in Game 2, ROX Tigers (3-6, 9-13 match record) drafted a strong siege composition around AD carry Gwon "Sangyoon" Sang-yun's Caitlyn, feeding him two kills in a four-man tower dive at five minutes. Sprinting ahead through superior siege abilities, ROX punished Ever8's lack of early game and waveclear, decimating several towers and teamfights into the mid game. After a 3-for-1 went in ROX's favor to pin EEW inside of its base, ROX held a nearly 10,000-gold lead at 23 minutes, taking down all of Ever8's inhibitors. In the blink of an eye, Sangyoon and company had Ever8 on the back foot, swarming into its base alongside triple super-minion waves and finishing Game 2 in a lightning fast 24 minutes.
Ever8 continued to use a strong teamfighting composition in Game 3, while ROX Tigers used a pick composition centered around Sangyoon's Twitch and mid laner Son "Mickey" Young-min's Taliyah. ROX jumped ahead early after a Weaver's Wall from Mickey gave ROX an easy 4-for-1 teamfight win at the 13-minute mark, but the game stalled after that with both teams afraid to overcommit to anything. The fear of throwing only leads to more throws, though, as both teams took turns giving its opponents advantages with poor teamfight losses, effectively stalling the game. In the late game, Mickey and Sangyoon shined for ROX, pumping out massive damage to lead the final ROX assault. Taking a 4-for-0 at 43 minutes, ROX finally put Ever8 Winners away and secured the 2-1 series win in 44 minutes.