For the first time since LCK made the transition in becoming an official league, ‘SK Telecom T1’ ran into a 3-game losing streak.

With 3 ‘World Championship’ titles, 6 LCK titles, and a grand total of 14 victories under their belt, SKT was and is claimed by fans as the ‘best team in the world’. So it was only natural for the fans to have given their full attention to SKT when the team recently fell into a slump.

How and when did this start? Their losing streak official began when they lost against WE during ‘Rift Rivals’ in Taiwan. However, it is quite evident from their past games that their “slump” started even before their departure to Taiwan. It all started from the team’s two positions that employ ‘sixth man’ players: top and jungle.

In 2014, SKT was removed from their throne during Worlds. Then, the two sister teams of SKT at the time were joined into one. Along with the changes, coach Kkoma implemented subs into the jungle and mid position, and it was proven to be more than successful with the results the team made. ‘Marin’, the toplaner for SKT showed the world why he was titled MVP for Worlds, and the two botlaners, Bang and Wolf, developed into a reliable yet fierce duo, becoming well-known as the ace players of the team.

On the other hand, Bengi was a reliable jungler, and Faker was a player who had the potential to solo carry a game on his own. But these two players also had downsides to them. Bengi was a player that relied on the meta, and although minor, Faker had shown inconsistent plays before the merge of the two teams. In order to refine these weaknesses, Kkoma employed ‘Easyhoon’ for midlane and ‘Tom’ for the jungle as subs. With this roster, the two subs filled in for the existing players when they were in bad form. Continuing this trend, SKT once again claimed their spot as the best team.

Back in 2016, SKT players added on the 3rd star to their uniforms. But the games won by the team were rather hard fought, and the wins weren’t as convincing as fans had hoped. Although Bengi got back to form in his playoff game against SSG, he dropped in performance later on. And the sub jungler, Blank, who replaced Tom was a major disappointment to the fans at the time. Also, ‘Scout’, a player known as a reliable laner, left SKT after only 1 split; and ‘Duke’, a player that replaced Marin, didn’t meet the expectations of fans as he didn’t perform as well as he did during his time in Najin.

On that year, SKT finished the spring split in 3rd place, and on the following split, they failed to make it to the finals during playoffs. On the 2nd and 3rd day of MSI, they went on a 4-game losing streak. And despite the victory at the World Championships, they were brought to game 5 on both the semi-finals and the grand finals. 2016 was the most intense year for SKT.

Looking back into 2015 and 2016, coach Kkoma made sure to have a backup player in lanes that were susceptible to slumps. And In 2017, the coach employed a total of 3 different players in the toplane, and 2 players in the jungle.

The reason Huni and Peanut usually play as the starting players are most likely attributed to their immense mechanical talents. The two players have shown many instances where they completely take over a game when given even a little bit of an opportunity. Huni has shown great performances during his laning phases while Peanut has shown outstanding abilities in ganking.

However, the two players have also shown lackluster plays by getting into dangerous situations by solely relying on their mechanical prowess. In the recent game played against Samsung, approximately 11 minutes into the game, SKT was trading a dragon for a tower. But during it, Huni needlessly walked up and gave up a solo-kill along with the tower to the enemy team. And on the 2nd set of SKT’s series against Afreeca Freecs, Peanut was caught out when he overextended to destroy a ward. His death resulted in giving the Baron over to AFs and eventually, the game itself. A simple mistake like this in solo queue is common; but in the professional field, a single misstep like that can cost the entire team a game. It also goes against Kkoma’s motto: ‘Do what we must but make no mistakes’.

It’s true that Kkoma utilized the subs to its fullest potential until at least the 1st round of the summer split. But even then, if the starting players don’t perform as expected, the factor for uneasiness remains. As the meta is shifting towards having bruisers in the toplane over tanks, the amount of influence the toplaner can attribute to the game has increased tremendously. So for SKT, a member that needed to act as the tactical pivot of the team - fell into a slump.

As top and jungle were constantly patched up by the sixth man, mid and bot also faced its problems. The most noticeable moment was when SKT played against WE during Rift Rivals. When Faker overextended in an attempt to steal the enemies’ raptors, he made a mistake that eventually snowballed and added complications to SKT’s chances of winning the game.

The reason why Faker’s mistake was critical for SKT goes quite a long way. As Cassiopeia was picked to counter the opposing “diving” comp by delaying the growth of Galio, Faker’s loss of flash from the exchange in the jungle prevented him from doing what he needed to do. Also, the core of SKT’s split pushing comp, Jax, was down 30 CS against Jarvan. The color that represented SKT’s team composition was completely faded away.

The performance shown by Faker in SKT’s series against AFs was also lackluster. During the series, Faker blindly picked Taliyah for both games before KurO picked his champion. Although it could’ve been a respect to KurO by taking the pick away from him, blindly picking a champion before getting the chance to see the enemy’s shows confidence. It’s because the player becomes susceptible to being counter picked by doing so.

But in the end, AFs won the series with KurO being the MVP for both sets. Faker’s Taliyah was proven unsuccessful in stopping KurO’s Corki and Kassadin.

SKT’s most reliable lane, botlane, also started shaking. Although Wolf had many moments in the past where he was caught out during the process of fighting for vision, giving out kills during the laning phase was a rare sight to see. So the kill he gave over to AFs during the laning phase came as a surprise for the fans watching. And Bang, a player known as the bastion of SKT, was killed despite having both summoner skills up - approximately 14 minutes into set 1.

SKT’s previous game against Jin Air was also shocking to the fans. The Syndra that constantly pushed lane despite having flash down, the botlane that made the poor attempt to dive, the toplane that completely crumbled; an analyst's explanation was not needed to see the mistakes SKT made during the series.

We can say that SKT’s slump came from the burden of being on a losing streak. We can also say that the immense amount of flak the fans gave the players during Rift Rivals affected SKT’s performance.  

What the players of SKT need now is victory. Kkoma’s past remark: “We may slump, but we will never collapse,” is now put to the test. How the players of SKT will pass that test will be witnessed by many.