The victors and Runners-up of LCK, champions of international competitions like MSI and IEM, conquerors of the LoL World Championship, known to be the most prestige match, and even winners of domestic leagues in other countries such as LPL and EU LCS. These are the titles that the 2017 LCK Spring postseason teams and players hold. The LCK postseason is considered to be the best among domestic leagues in the world, and people expect there to be fierce competition between teams with outstanding careers. Among all of this, there is one team that, despite not having any particular history, has been drawing attention nonetheless. This team is called MVP, a team that has delivered many impressive fights and variable-breaking matches to its fanbase.

MVP made its debut and placed 6th during their 1st league in the summer of 2016. In comparison with ESC Ever, which stayed in the lowest tier and had to have a re-promotion tournament, MVP’s early results were considered a good start. During the cataclysmic 2016 Stove League, the team took initiative in solidifying their teamwork by announcing their roster with original members much earlier than other teams.

The team showed, as expected, that their superb teamwork was their advantage during the 2017 Spring Season. It shined during teamfights by overturning the tides of the battle, bringing them great and sometimes unexpected victories quite often. Jongbin “Max” Jung, the support of the team, also played a great role in contributing to victory over the course of the matches. The team then became qualified to enter the postseason for the first time after being founded.

However, the wall of professionals is quite high for this postseason. The objective index indicates that MVP is considered to be the weakest out of the 5 teams. On top of that, the team suffered a heavy defeat from Afreeca Freecs during the last match, and there’s a dominant opinion that their leap will end in the wildcard match. The team is now faced with a pivotal moment; now is the time to show their full potential if they aim to enter the next round.

How did MVP get to the high tier?

First off, we need to find out how they managed to retrieve the postseason ticket after surpassing prominent teams. The biggest factor that kept MVP in the league during the regular season was ‘variables’. From their champion pool, bans, picks, and their unexpectedly good teamwork, these variables have been the key weapons of MVP. It started with Gunmo “ADD” Kang’s Sion, and their advantage grew further when Max came up with various non-mainstream support champions.

The ban-pick strategy with a wide range of champions

In the beginning of the season, Sion was a card only used by ADD, as the champion did not usually appear in pro matches. ADD astounded the audience with his understanding of the champion and execution of his ultimate, and teams going against MVP had no choice but to spend one ban card on Sion. It was a tremendous result, especially considering the non-mainstream nature of the champion.

Max has the largest champion pool out of all supporters in LCK this season. The number of champions he used so far is 15. That seems to be the highest number even when compared to other supports who are known to be high tier - Jaewan “Wolf” Lee with 7 champions, Yongin “CoreJJ” Cho with 8, Sehyung “Mata” Cho with 9, and Bumhyun “GorillA” Kang with 10. Even Jongik “TusiN” Park, the support of Afreeca Freecs, who used various champions such as Camille and Brand used only 11 champions.

One of the advantages of Max’s large champion pool is the power the team gains from the ban-pick phase. Other teams at the time hardly expected any of the support-position champions chosen by MVP such as Elise, Syndra, and Nautilus. Through this strategy, the team increased the probability of being able to pick their desired champions in other lanes. They were able to start with an advantage even from the beginning.

MVP showed this ban-pick strategy not only with support but also with top and jungle. Instead of Graves, the champion known to be top tier in jungle, the team picked Rengar during the 2nd match of the 2nd round with Longzhu Gaming. Thinking that MVP already picked their jungler, Longzhu left graves and picked Caitlyn and Lulu, aiming for a strong bot lane composition. MVP, as though they had planned it all along, picked Graves right away in the next turn and swapped Rengar to the top, completing their desired composition.

The fight lead by the playmaker

Max’s contribution does not end with his large champion pool however. Perhaps even more important than his champion pool is his ability to carry games using his unusual champion picks. This is made evident by the fact that his MVP points are the highest in the team, peaking at 800. With reference to the win rate of the matches, the team won every match when Max picked unconventional champions such as Elise, Sion, Brand, and Vel’Koz. The only lost match was when he picked Syndra. The win rates of other unusual champions such as Tahm Kench, Thresh and Nautilus are also high, showing just how advantageous and unpredictable this variable can be.

In particular, Brand and Sion were the no.1 contributors for the victory against KT Rolster. During the 2nd match of the 1st round on Feb 14, the team had 4 AD champions and Max maximized the AP damage on Brand, reaching the highest damage in the team. The moment when Sion knocked 4 opponents airborne sent shivers down the spine of every audience member and is considered to be one of the best moments of this season.

The biggest weakness - laning phase

However, despite these unique strengths, MVP suffers from a fairly glaring weakness. That weakness is that the team’s laning phase is drastically weaker than the other teams’. In fact, there have only been a few instances when MVP has won during the lane phase without any help from junglers or teamfights. It’s usually thanks to the jungler or teamfights that the team is able to turn the game around after a losing streak.

The mid lane is thought to be the main cause of the team’s losses. The laning phase has become critical in the current meta, with emphasis on mid and jungle. Because of this, the fact that Junhyung “Ian” Ahn is not as capable as he used to be is a concerning matter. Moreover, his somewhat limited champion pool has become a problem as well. With the exception his most-used champions, Syndra and Orianna, the win rates of his other champions are considerably low. He has sometimes struggled to produce satisfactory performance even with Orianna. Many teams already knew about this and responded by banning Syndra or selecting her in advance to put more pressure on him.

Even Max, the ace of the team, has shown some rather unsatisfactory performance with Hyunsik “Maha” Oh in the bot lane. They had to abandon CS, a tower, and a few dragons to the opponents during laning phase when they picked conventional champions such as Lulu, Karma, Zyra, or Nami. This got even worse when they picked melee champions such as Sion, Tahm Kench, or Nautilus, who are all weak during laning phase.

The Jungler losing influence

Kyuseok “Beyond” Kim, the jungler of the team, eventually lost his influence following the unsatisfactory laning phase of each lane. It was not a surprising occurrence, as the recent meta is for laners to set up the stage for a jungler to actively do his job. The foundations of a jungler’s role, that is, the control of vision, object control, counter jungling, and ganking, were all controlled by the opponent, and Beyond had no other choice but to give support from the shadows to not fail the laning phases of his team.

His personal capability is deemed as good as other high tier junglers, so the situation is quite disappointing. Although he did not receive as much limelight as Max during the regular season, he did fulfill his role and lead the team with Max. The moments where he succeeded stealing objectives, along with the composure and skills he showed during the intense fight, helped him receive many compliments from the audience.

His composure especially shined during the 2nd match of the 2nd round against KT Rolster. Dongbin “Score” Go’s Rengar counter-jungled and ambushed Beyond’s Graves. His health bar was drastically reduced with each hit, and the enemy mid laner was quickly approaching. Beyond, staying calm and collected, used a smoke screen to prevent further damage and lured Rengar to the range of the tower without using a quickdraw. He eventually killed Rengar and even attempted to commit suicide to take down Taliyah, giving him his first lead big lead since that game began.

To make a balanced match

It is almost impossible to advance to a high tier laning phase with only such a small amount of time left before the postseason. Thus, the only way MVP can make up for their weakness is to select stronger champions for the laning phase and have faith in Beyond. If they can make this happen and balance the match, Beyond will be able to perform more actively and help other lanes, or take priority of wards and objectives.

These advantages will then lead to an environment where the team can capitalize on their strength in a fight. Ian and Maha have always fulfilled their roles when they are synergized with the rest of the team during teamfights, even if they were not so good during the laning phase. If they can lead the match to have early or mid-game teamfights over objectives and are able to gain advantages from them, the team will be in a much more favorable situation.

For this dream to become reality, ADD’s champion picks will be crucial. With him facing AF’s MaRin, who has been delivering world-class performances, ADD cannot afford the luxury of a careless pick. This is made clear by the fact that, during their tie-breaker match, ADD’s Renekton was nearly solo-killed by MaRin’s Nautilus despite the champion match-up leaning in Renekton’s favor.

Fizz would be a good choice to strengthen ADD’s laning phase. The champion possesses a number of evasive skills, which opens up the option of replacing flash with ignite. The mastery Grasp of the Undying also provides an advantage toward winning trades in-lane and also adds additional sustain. Because of these factors, Fizz is a suitable choice for MVP, as he fulfills their needs for a strong lane champion and a champion who can contribute well in teamfights. Though they lost against SKT T1 the last time they picked Fizz, SKT had gained an early advantage with an invade. Nonetheless, MVP still managed to reduce the health bar of Seunghoon “Huni” Heo to 1 and almost got a solo-kill during the laning phase.

Lastly, the variables derived from the ban-pick strategy that has led MVP to their victories are something to be mentioned. Afreeca Freecs still needs to consider the various scenarios that could result from MVP’s signature champion pool, which could feature as Sion, Rengar, and Nautilus in varying lanes and roles.

If MVP comes up with different strategies or lane-swapping picks that have never been shown before, they will surely become key weapons against Afreeca Freecs. Fizz can be used on the top and the mid, and ADD’s Kennen, which has 3 consecutive wins so far, can also be used as a support. Moreover, people have high expectations of Max’s joker, which has never been seen previously.

In the end, MVP may have some easily-exploited weaknesses, but if they capitalize on their strengths and clever strategies, victory could very well be in their grasp. The audience is ever-anxious to see the team bring a happy ending to the first chapter of their story.