Last season, Samsung Galaxy entered Worlds as the ‘other’ Korean team, and were almost an afterthought. They had to go to a decisive fifth game against KT Rolster to make it to Worlds and weren’t considered the equals of SK Telecom T1 or ROX Tigers.
They proved they were one of the best teams though and in doing so showed just how far ahead Korea was as a region compared to everyone else in League of Legends. Samsung was able to win their group and then swept Cloud9 and H2K in order to reach the finals. There, they lost 3-2 to SKT in an extremely tight series.
Opening Betting Odds to Win 2017 League of Legends World Championship
Samsung Galaxy +500
Top Lane
Samsung has one of the best players in the world patrolling its top lane. CuVee has long been regarded as an elite top laner and he has continually bested some of the other elite top laners throughout the world.
Despite his greatness, this last split was a real struggle for him. CuVee played a lot of Kled, but did not look particularly good on the champion and now Kled has fallen out of the meta. He hasn’t looked good on Gnar either despite continuing to play him either.
CuVee will likely be on a tank for most of the time at Worlds after that strategy led to them finally beating KT Rolster in order to qualify.
Jungle
There’s a world of difference between the playstyles of Samsung’s junglers.
Haru is young and plays very aggressively. He is constantly looking to attack and invade the enemy jungle. That strategy worked out well in Spring Split and Haru looked like one of the most promising young jungle prospects in some time.
Then the meta changed. Playmaking junglers were getting punished left and right and Haru wasn’t spared. Instead, the team had to turn back to its old veteran Ambition and he showed that he still has what it takes. His smart play was one of the key reasons that Samsung made it back to Worlds and he will be the starting jungler in Samsung’s opening matches. Expect to see Haru at some point though.
Mid Lane
Crown is one of the top mid laners in the world and one of the few that can hold his own against Faker. Although he usually drafts more team focused champions, he is deadly when asked to carry. Samsung is 9-1 when he is on either Syndra or Cassiopeia and can rack up big numbers on those characters.
For the most part, he is content with just farming in his lane and being the deciding factor when it comes to team fights. He averaged over nine CS per minute during the Summer Split, but only had a 3.2 KDA. He might be asked to do more than that in this group though. Royal Never Give Up and G2 both rely heavily on their mid laner and Samsung might need Crown to counter that rather than play it safe.
AD Carry
Ruler has had an up and down year. He has a surprisingly shallow champion pool considering he is the AD Carry for one of the best teams in the world, but played well for the most part aside from some early season struggles.
He has been extremely dependent on Ashe and Varys this split. Ruler was on one of those two champions in 30 of his 44 games this split as Samsung shied away from the hypercarry strategy employed by most teams.
Support
CoreJJ is one of the more underrated supports you will find. He is one of the three or four best in the world, but doesn’t get the recognition he would in any other region.
Although many other splits were using champions like Thresh and Alistar in the current meta, CoreJJ has kept it old school with his picks and that has paid off. His three most favored champions were Braum, Tahm Kench, and Zyra, and Braum is the only one that is frequently seen.
He has great chemistry with Ruler and the two were able to work in unison swimmingly to help Samsung get ahead of KT Rolster in the Regional Final.
Prediction
This is Samsung’s group to lose. They should be heavy favorites to win the group over G2, RNGU, and Fenehrbahce and anything other than a 5-1 record or better would feel like a disappointment considering what they did at Worlds last year with the exact same roster.
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