KeG Presidential Cup Finals, vs Gyeonggi (4)
What exactly is a League Gallery board king?
To answer that question properly, you have to dig pretty far back into the past.
From 2012 onward, for years on end, League Gallery had been nothing short of a playground for Korean League of Council players. Sure, there were information-sharing sites here and there, but nowhere else was as lively when it came to swapping LoC stories or talking shop about tournaments.
And so the board king seat was always occupied by whichever player defined the era.
After Hyeonseong and PotG cemented themselves as the rivalry of a generation and began fighting over the throne of the Korean LoC scene, the seat mostly bounced between Lee Do-jin and his rival, Heo Jun-seok.
Then Hyeonseong collapsed, and the crown passed to Scorn — Go Yong-bin — the oldest active jungler in the game, who had become the hottest name of CCK 2018 Summer.
Every so often Hyeonseong's current jungler, Blind — Kim Dong-gu — would get tossed around under nicknames like "Jamgu" and enjoy something close to board-king status himself. But right now, this was the world of first-place KC Rollercoaster.
And then, out of nowhere, an alien named Jin Gyeo-wool dropped straight into KC's world. Not just any alien, either — one with the power to flip the entire scene on its head.
(0/3/1 clip)
Still think so? lol
See?
She threw one single game and she was already running League Gallery.
She was a seedling destined to grow into something enormous.
Jin Gyeo-wool had died stopping the Cerberus take, but the game hadn't fully slipped into Gyeonggi's hands just yet.
Handing over Jake — who was already sitting on two deaths — had netted them Urgot's shutdown gold, and with Cerberus still available there was still a chance to pick up extra gold on the board.
The gold deficit was stretching toward two thousand, but it was a gap they could absolutely close.
"Seoul's going to give up the second dragon to Gyeonggi for now."
"Right — this isn't the time to force anything. They need to buy time. Jake's starting to breathe a little. Looking at his CS intake, the recovery shouldn't take that long."
Jin Gyeo-wool began slowly farming CS, rebuilding the ruined Jake piece by piece.
She would have loved to keep tormenting Gong Je-hyeon a little longer, but at this rate he was never going to figure out the problem on his own.
When a bad kid won't listen to kind words, corporal punishment is the only answer left.
The second this game ends, I'm ripping that hair out by the roots. With that thought, Jin Gyeo-wool fixed Gong Je-hyeon with a look cold enough to freeze blood.
Around the fifteen-minute mark, a call came through for the Jin Gyeo-wool who had been doing nothing but farming and growing.
It was Ha Jeong-uk's voice.
"I don't think they know I'm here. Wanna group mid real quick?"
"Call. Let's feed Noona a kill!"
"Heading up — dive the second I get there."
"Ready."
A losing game. Teammates who lived for a fight. A slightly diminished Jin Gyeo-wool. A bot duo itching to do something. And Gong Je-hyeon, who charged at anything the moment someone suggested it.
All of it stacked into a natural synergy, and in the blink of an eye they had assembled a five-man mid dive squad that looked like something out of a pro match.
Bailing out now would make it painfully obvious she was deliberately screwing with Gong Je-hyeon, so Jin Gyeo-wool had no choice but to go along with the plan.
Besides — they were offering her a free kill. Who turns down a meal when someone sets the whole table right in front of your face?
The enemy Urgot and Twisted Fate were split between top and bot managing their lanes, and both had teleport and ultimates back up.
But Seoul's five players collapsing on the enemy bot duo in mid would be faster than either of them could rotate in. After all, Seoul had drilled this exact sequence countless times through solo queue, team ranked, and scrims.
This was where Coach Chae Hojin's hidden competence showed itself.
You guys need to think about what happens when Gyeo-wool isn't there.
Why?
What do you mean, why, you brats. Gyeo-wool can't play perfectly every single game. She's human too.
Doesn't really seem human, though?
Gong Je-hyeon. Cut the nonsense.
Back at the jjimjilbang, Chae Hojin had drilled the team on exactly how to operate when Jin Gyeo-wool couldn't carry.
One: Buy Gyeo-wool time to recover and scale.
Two: Keep an eye on top, but only help when it's truly necessary.
Three: Stay calm. If the whole team starts inting, the loss is locked in.
Four: Practice winning small-scale skirmishes without Jin Gyeo-wool.
That fourth directive. Winning skirmishes four-man.
In truth, Seoul had dragged the pace of games plenty of times even before Jin Gyeo-wool got involved. Hadn't they done exactly that in set one, barely thirty minutes ago?
Yes, Jin Gyeo-wool had won her lane up top — but blowing up bot had been entirely the other four's achievement.
"Seoul looks like they're setting something up right now."
"If they want to catch up, they have to throw a variable and score."
The camera over the War Council suddenly widened, revealing five Seoul champions ringed around the mid lane.
Ha Jeong-uk's Alistar, tucked on the right side of the raptor camp above mid. Gong Je-hyeon's Talon, just vaulting the blue-side wall and sprinting in. Choi Do-yun's Gragas, body hidden along the river above mid. Yu Min-jae's Swain, holding vision and drawing eyes on the mid lane itself. And last — Jin Gyeo-wool's Jake, waiting below the river south of mid for the moment to strike.
The only one caught on enemy vision was Swain.
The instant the enemy Rakan finished sweeping his lens under the raptors, decided it was safe, and started walking back toward tower—
Alistar flashed over the wall, straight into the enemy mid tier-one, and headbutted Varus clean out of tower range.
"Alistar, flash headbutt!"
"Swain pulls him again!!"
Swain's basic ability — Hungry Flock.
A conditional skill that could yank an immobilized target one more time toward himself. He could drag someone he'd bound with his own E, or — like right now — chain it off a teammate's setup.
With a shriek, a swarm of black birds hauled Varus all the way to the center of the mid lane — and Talon, racing up from bot, revealed himself.
"Urgot just hit teleport!"
"Varus flashes back out, but—!"
"Alistar held it and pops him up with Q! Talon ults in!"
Varus tried to flash away, but while he hung in the air an avalanche of burst crashed down on him.
From way out, the overcharged shell Jin Gyeo-wool had fired streaked in and detonated. Talon's shurikens fanned out and then collapsed inward, shredding Varus to pieces.
"Kim Ho-jae's Varus just melted!"
The panicked enemy Rakan ulted late and tried to lock down the Alistar and Talon who had already pushed under tower. At the same time, the enemy Twisted Fate on bot ulted straight in front of the mid tower.
But Gyeonggi's bot duo had melted far too fast. Rakan — already low from catching Talon's ultimate damage while he dashed in with his charm — got buried under Swain and Jake's hammer-form damage and was reduced to scrap in seconds.
"Bot duo deleted in an instant! Kwon Yun-su and Kim Gyeong-su just arrived, but isn't it a little late?!"
The giant barrel Gragas had lobbed onto the arriving Twisted Fate's head detonated together with the one already on the ground, carving TF's health bar cleanly in half in a single blast.
"TF's health is halved instantly!"
Then Swain — ultimate up, crow-god descended — and Jake piled on the burst, and Twisted Fate, having arrived only to do absolutely nothing, burned flash trying to run and died to the ignite tick damage anyway.
Alistar, who had been tanking the tower aggro, peeled off at half health, and the baton passed to Swain.
Urgot's ultimate streaked in and locked onto Swain, who still had about sixty percent HP. Another few tower shots and he could get executed.
"Ah, this dive is insanely greedy!!"
"Swain looks a little dangerous here! He's got the mark on him!"
"And here — aggro ping-pong! He bleeds it with the stopwatch!!"
Swain popped the stopwatch he'd been holding, dumping the tower aggro back onto Alistar. Alistar tanked it to the absolute limit of his health bar before retreating to the lane.
In that window, Swain timed the end of his stopwatch and flashed out from under the tower.
"Wow. Truly. A chilling gank!!"
"That aggro ping-pong was insane!"
The fight was fully cleaned up, and all five Seoul champions were alive and peeling back — when Yu Min-jae's voice cut through Seoul's team voice chat. He'd spotted a kill angle.
"Trundle!"
Swain, pretending to retreat, fired E / Demonic Grasp back toward the enemy side and snared the Trundle who had been shoving out to clear the wave with perfect timing.
As the yanked Trundle got dragged forward, Urgot lunged in to protect him.
But Jake's overcharged electron cannon — cooldown already back up — shredded Urgot's health so fast he had to turn tail. All he'd accomplished was wasting a flash for nothing.
Alone again, Trundle had no path to survival. Once Gragas's body slam landed and the CC chain locked in, tanking the flood of burst damage was simply impossible.
The casters erupted in admiration.
"One moreee!"
"And that takes Lee Jae-hyeon toooo!"
"Seoul!!"
"A picture-perfect teamfight!"
"With this fight, the game has flipped. The entire gold deficit is gone. Everything Jake lost has been paid back!"
And it hadn't even been a standard teamfight — it had been fought under the enemy mid tower.
From the aggro ping-pong on down, there had been no shortage of things to track. And yet, through the entire fight, the only words that came out of Seoul's voice chat were a single call: "Trundle!"
Everyone seeing the same angle. Everyone holding the same kill priority crystal-clear in their heads. That was how a highlight like this got made.
"They really fight so well."
"Incredible coordination!!"
"Not a single casualty. They just walked out of a perfect teamfight like a specially trained special-ops unit. This is actually ridiculous."
"Look, in set two early game, Gyeonggi was the one pressing Seoul. They got a kill top, they were bullying them with macro across the map, making Seoul look completely stifled."
"That's right."
"And now it's flipped. Now Gyeonggi's the one that's stifled. Seoul took mid tower first, and bot tower is a few hits from falling. With that one fight, the tempo just changed hands!"
Babysitting the weakened Jin Gyeo-wool didn't end there.
To keep testing Gong Je-hyeon, Jin Gyeo-wool kept taking aggressive forward positions in lane. She knew the enemy Urgot was looking down on her, and she was deliberately baiting the 1v1.
And Gong Je-hyeon, who had been watching the whole time, finally made his call. As if he'd decided, I protect our commander! — instead of the constantly gank-controlled Choi Do-yun, it was him who burst out of a brush and threw himself between the two top laners locked in their private duel.
"Alright, fights breaking out top and bot at the same time!"
"Bot's a 2v1, mid's a 3v4. Seoul mid is short a body?!"
It was the kind of call that made you wonder if Gong Je-hyeon had just inted.
But it was a calculated piece of the Grow Jin Gyeo-wool operation — greenlit because the bot duo and Choi Do-yun had already confirmed they could win a 3v4.
Seoul Choi Do-yun ▶ Gyeonggi Kim Ho-jae
"Varus just exploded on the spot!"
"Wow, they read that fight perfectly! They took the fight because they saw the win condition — that's Seoul!!"