Afreeca Freecs completely dismantled Gen.G in a quick 2-0 victory today to advance to the second round of the LCK playoffs.
For almost the whole summer, Gen.G’s playstyle has remained static. Gen.G’s favored playstyle has been to pick decently-scaling champions with an AD carry, have their jungler focus on farming and gaining vision rather than ganks, and eventually win through better mid-to-late game macro play and teamfighting.
And this playstyle worked out wonderfully for Gen.G in the regular season, especially against teams that couldn’t play caster and bruiser bot lanes well. But today, Afreeca were prepared for their opponents and crafted two early-game compositions that countered Gen.G’s slow playstyle.
In game one, Afreeca’s big surprise came in the form of Quinn top lane with Ignite and an Olaf jungle. Afreeca top laner Kim “Kiin” Gi-in ran over Lee “CuVee” Seong-jin’s Jarvan IV, which allowed him to assist his Olaf in multiple jungle invades.These invades, coupled with Afreeca’s two carries having almost free lanes since Gen.G built a hard-scaling composition with Zilean and Sivir, allowed Afreeca to accrue a major gold and objective lead.
But Gen.G’s defensive prowess is world class for a reason, and the world champions stalled out long enough for Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk’s Sivir to fully scale. The only thing that Ruler’s six-item Sivir provided was one miraculous teamfight win, however—Afreeca respawned and ended the game minutes later.
Arguably the best performer of today’s match was Afreeca ADC Ha “Kramer” Jong-hun. Given Swain in both games, Kramer held down Gen.G’s all-star bot lane duo. While Kramer played well throughout the entire series, his prowess as Swain truly shined in game two, when he hit countless roots onto Gen.G’s players.
Kramer’s pinpoint accuracy with Swain’s Nevermove ability allowed Afreeca to initiate their wombo-combo composition with Alistar and Yasuo, which created yet another massive gold lead. And this time, there was no magical comeback teamfight for Gen.G—Afreeca simply cleanly closed out the game with their lead.
With Gen.G defeated, Afreeca move on to the next round of the LCK playoffs, where they’ll face KINGZONE DragonX in a rematch of the Spring Split finals. Afreeca and KINGZONE’s best-of-five bout is set to take place on Aug. 15.
