2016 World Championship preview: Samsung Galaxy vs. H2K
By Xing Li
Samsung Galaxy and H2K will brawl it out today for the right to go to Los Angeles and face SK Telecom T1 in the finals of the 2016 World Championship.
The 2016 World Championship just keeps getting better and better. After a pretty chalky quarterfinals stage, we were treated to an absolute delight of a match last night. Let’s hope tonight is equally as good.
In terms of sheer talent, these two teams both bring a ton of firepower to the table. The winner will likely be the one that stays together better and makes the right shot calls.
Individual matchups
Honestly, these teams are so even on an individual level. Samsung top laner Sungjin “CuVee” Lee is a changed man. It seems that after one of his solo kills on Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho in the regional qualifier, he stole Ssumday’s powers and became an absolute monster in lane. He’s wrecking people everywhere, as EDG substitute Tony “Koro1” Yang found out to his dismay.
But H2K has a strong top laner too in Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu. In fact, they played through Odoamne’s carry lane in their quarterfinal against Albus NoX Luna. At this point, CuVee looks like the stronger player, but he’s not going to be an instant win condition.
The same thing could be said about most of the other positions. SSG’s Chanyong “Ambition” Kang is a more passive jungler which H2K’s Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski can take advantage of. Minho “Crown” Lee’s mechanics are sick, but so are Sang “Ryu” Wook Yoo’s. And H2K’s ADC Konstantinos-Napoleon “Forg1ven” Tzortziou is one of the most well-known, acclaimed, and controversial figures in the history of League. He’s going up against a rookie in Jaehyeok “Ruler” Park — only Ruler doesn’t play like a rookie at all and the team actually has funneled everything into him.
The macro
With such strong carry lanes, a lot will be determined by how the teams draft and play the map. And it’s hard not to give Samsung the advantage.
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Forg1ven’s champion pool is huge, but Ruler has shown proficiency on all the meta picks. The resurgence of Ashe should really help him. Meanwhile, Samsung should not be as afraid of Ryu’s champion pool as H2K are of Crown’s. Crown isn’t the star he once was, but his pool is still huge and he still has a huge impact on the rest of his team.
Then we have the supports. H2K’s Oscar “Vander” Bogdan has developed quite the symmetry with Forg1ven. It’s telling that H2K often leave those two on an island, trusting that they can handle whatever is thrown their way.
But Samsung’s Yongjin “CoreJJ” Jo has really stepped up after being inserted into the starting lineup not long ago. He and Ambition give the team strong vision in the enemy jungle. But H2K’s ward stats have been seriously impressive during the Worlds tournament.
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Our prediction
The one thing not yet mentioned could be H2K’s biggest weakness: late-game shot calling. Despite dominating early against ANX in all three of their quarterfinals games, H2K fell into a stalled late-game that let ANX hang around long enough to make things interesting.
There’s nothing wrong with playing deliberately and avoiding fights with a lead. After all, SKT do that all the time. But H2K honestly looked like they didn’t know what to do at times. That’s something that Samsung will feast on. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them take a scaling comp and wait for H2K to either screw up or take their foot off the gas.
We hope that this series goes the distance and is as good as last night’s, but based on the shot-calling difference, our call is Samsung 3-1.
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