Samsung Galaxy squeezed out a 2-1 series victory over the ROX Tigers on Tuesday in Seoul, South Korea to wrap up Week 9, Day 1 in League of Legends Champions Korea.
Far more than any individual player, Orianna was the runaway MVP of this series. Whichever team picked the mid lane champion ended up the victor, with Samsung taking her twice. In those wins, it wasn't just Orianna that led Samsung to victory, however. Samsung showed off great macro play to dominate every area of the map in these games to pick up wins. In Game 1, Samsung picked up all five dragons that spawned while also owning an 11-2 advantage in towers, leading to Samsung methodically grinding ROX out of the game. The final game of the series was more of the same, as ROX only managed a single kill and tower secure as Samsung steamrolled to a quick win. Different in how they played out, these games showed off all of Samsung's strengths as one of the top teams in the LCK.
The only problem with the series was that Samsung didn't manage to pick up the sweep. Instead, ROX managed to wrestle away a win in Game 2. Samsung had a poor drafting phase in this game by putting mid laner Lee "Crown" Min-ho on Lucian against the Orianna of ROX mid laner Kim "Lava" Tae-hoon. This decision allowed Lava to easily dictate the mid lane matchup, which left Samsung scrambling to keep up with the Tigers as ROX flipped the script with a dominating 40-minute win. Sure, it ended up not mattering in the grand scheme of things since Samsung won the series, but a more dominant performance from Samsung was certainly expected.
Of particular note, Samsung has locked the defending World Champions of SK Telecom T1 out the third seed in the postseason with the win. SKT can now finish no better than fourth place, which is certainly surprising given SKT's stature and legacy. If nothing else, this sets up an interesting playoff gauntlet in the LCK.