How FORG1VEN and fox beef up SK’s brawl
Despite the fact that SK Gaming is better known as a creative squad that finds success in split-pushing and map movements to avoid fights, they are a team fighting team at their core. Their champion picks were often best suited to straight-up 5v5s in the 2014 EU LCS Summer, and though they had a penchant for losing lane, SK’s creative comebacks usually came from calculating where to choose the best fights. With potential upgrades to SK’s carry roles creating the possibility for them to play a faster game, SK may look to take more fights more frequently and become the heavy-weight brawlers they’ve been picking as for the past summer.
When Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou joined the roster of Copenhagen Wolves, he proved to be an instrumental breath of fresh air after the departure of Martin "Rekkles" Larsson. They began flattening the competition in the post-Worlds European amateur scene in 2013. FORG1VEN performed at the center with an aggressive, no-holds-barred laning style that he himself has considered quite influential.
After leaving the Wolves when they didn’t achieve what he had hoped in 2014 LCS Spring, FORG1VEN took the summer off before he found himself a new home on SK. At first glance, it appears to be a stylistic mismatch. SK is best known for calculated plays that take time to form, build, and execute. They only pull the trigger when they’re sure they’ll win a fight, and with Simon “Fredy122” Payne’s propensity to split-push, they often play a strategic game that avoids confrontation.
Only they don’t.
One sometimes-held myth of League of Legends is that team fighting teams don’t use as much strategy. They outplay via mechanics. As a result, when one classifies SK as a strategic team, they remove team fighting from the equation and assume SK plays to avoid the brawls. Instead, SK’s strategy often revolves around setting up the best fights positionally, guessing where their opponents will be, and collapsing at the last moment.
Jesse “Jesiz” Le, SK’s former mid laner, played Orianna and Ziggs more often than any other mid lane champion in the 2014 LCS. Both champions excel when they can use their area of effect damage on clumped targets in a team fight. Adrian “CandyPanda” Wübbelmann, the team’s previous AD carry, is best known as a Vayne player, and the team often prioritized positional AD carry picks with high team fight output like Kog’Maw or Jinx. Though Fredy122 received a lot of split-pushing champion bans, his most played champions outside Aatrox are Renekton and Trundle, tanking and zoning specialists.
SK often designed team fighting compositions around Christoph “nRated” Seitz’s engagement calls and the team’s sparse use of vision. LCS casters have frequently taken note of SK’s low ward count relative to other top EU LCS teams, which is usually compensated for by three things.
The aggressiveness of Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen and his ability to draw the enemy jungler into vision either through invasions or lane ganking
SK’s predictive ability in setting up for dragon or determining where the enemy team will go next
SK’s tendency to take 5v5 fights in open areas
In other words, SK’s poor use of vision worked in part because they wanted to fight. Pick compositions and split-pushing styles rely more heavily on securing vision. In a pick composition, a stray target needs to be spotted separated from his team, and with a split-pushing strategy, ward placement allows for easy map movement.
Since SK often operated as a group of five and worked to take fights at predictable places like dragon or in the lane around a tower, they had less use for vision. In addition, during laning phase, Svenskeren could often pull the jungler into vision by invading or ganking lanes first. As such, SK was able to compensate for a lack of wards.
Aside from poor vision, SK often received heavy bans for top lane split-pushers. This more often than not forced Fredy122 onto a tanky champion. Given Jesiz’s champion pool, that meant a lot of SK’s compositions were designed around protecting CandyPanda and amplifying his damage output. NRated was notably one of the first and only supports to pick Kayle during 2014, and he quickly latched onto Morgana who both had engagement and protection tools.
CandyPanda was somewhat limited as a solo carry without these protection tools, which forced SK to take only careful fights. They held engagements or waited until the enemy team had started an objective to flank. These patient engagements coupled with creative champion picks to throw the opposition off guard won SK Gaming the reputation of a strategic team.
The question then becomes how FORG1VEN and Hampus "fox" Myhre will fit the dynamic. Both players seem to be considerably less trigger-shy than their earlier counterparts. In the challenger scene, watdefox has used his Orianna ultimates without hesitation, sometimes too early when they could have been saved for more intelligent engagements. FORG1VEN’s all-in style often worked independently from the Copenhagen Wolves in the 2014 LCS Spring, allowing him to rack up a self-sufficient kill count.
A few concerns about the clash of SK’s calculated fight-picking with the more play-making styles of their new additions may arise. Fox’s liberal use of cooldowns may restrict the ideal setup that SK likes to employ, and FORG1VEN’s tendency to lead the charge could scatter his own team.
Given the champion picks and playstyles of the lingering members of SK, it seems more likely that the squad will see it as an opportunity to throw caution to the wind and take more and less calculated fights. Setting up positional advantages will still be in the team’s nature, but they missed many engagement opportunities as a result of hesitation in the past. Jesiz would fail to pull the trigger, or a lack of vision would make the team pull back and regroup.
Often the most successful fights are not only planned in advanced, but instigated at the first sight of opportunity. Team members with the most gold lead the charge. Given both fox’s and FORG1VEN’s tendency to play the laning phase to win, SK could end up on the back foot more often.
If SK does choose to play more aggressively, however, vision will become a larger problem. Passive lanes meant the team could let Svenskeren dictate the pace of the game while the rest of the team fell behind. Stronger lanes could prove a boon for Svenskeren’s tendency to invade—but if his teammates push up without his support, they’ll need better wards. If SK can nail those down, they could find themselves with a lead earlier, which means even less caution needs to be taken in calculating initiations. The question becomes whether SK failed to shore up their vision because they didn't need it or if they played less aggressively to compensate for fewer wards.
Vision is not the only question mark left at the end of SK's new roster. Though fox and FORG1VEN seem more willing to get their hands dirty, and it's likely Svenskeren's style may welcome the change, Jesiz wasn't the only gun-shy player on the roster. NRated withheld his own engagements, and it's unclear whether he hesitated to take less than ideal fights that a snowballed team would win because SK was often behind, or if nRated's more careful nature will leave a gungho team without their support in an important fight.
Other concerns linger, including the green behind fox's ears and the overall synergy and communication of the squad, but stylistically SK's new carries seem in line with the types of compositions the team already likes to play. With time, SK could look to become the hard and fast bullet train team Europe has been missing.
