It's taken a year and half; many roster moves and gradual improvement to stable players have occurred, but here we are at the start of the summer 2016 LCK split and Samsung remains the only undefeated team aside from skt… which will change this Saturday when both titans collide to destroy that undefeated status.

There is a lot we can attribute Samsung’s current form to, but the most notable point is just how well the team comes together player-for-player.

A rookie with vision

One of the hardest traits to find in newer players is the ability to follow up on his team or have self awareness when it comes to fighting and skirmishes. They’re simply not used to playing with their teammates by that point and adapting to other player’s playstyle can take a long time to adjust. That’s not the case with Samsung’s new AD Carry for summer 2016, Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk.

To most fans, it was an out of nowhere signing to the team. Previous AD Carry Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in was starting to pick up momentum in the latter stages of the spring split performing better and being efficient with his resources. True -- CoreJJ wasn't where he needed to be -- but it did look like given enough time, he probably could get to that point.

The signing was even more confusing when you take into account that Ruler hadn't truly shown how good he can be. His previous appearances were on the challenger squad Star Dust, where he was alright but nothing out of the ordinary in terms of Challenger talent.

Apparently, Samsung had seen in Ruler something that viewers had not. Samsung had seen some potential in this incredibly young marksman (who, just last December, turned 17 and became eligible to play in the competitive scene).

With Ruler’s performances on Ezreal and Ashe have maybe shown to the viewers what Samsung already saw: a player with good sense of where to be, when to react and let his team guide him through the games. We may have before us the next big name in the making.

Still, there has to be some caution taken when looking at Ruler (who, if keeping this trend, is a strong contender for rookie of the split) since he's side-by-side with possibly the most overlooked good support in Wraith.

Never walk alone

Since 2015 summer, the entire jungle/support synergy has been at the forefront of practically every major league. With the emphasis on early warding and lane swap, teams were and still are required to have multiple players roam together in unison to gather as much intel as they could over where the enemy team’s missing players can be, as well as dropping wards around objectives.

A point that was often made about Samsung’s Jungler, Kang “ Ambition” Chan-yong, was the fact that his over-aggression would cost him unwarranted deaths in the river/enemy jungle.

Thanks to the previous point about rookie AD Carry being self sufficient, you now have a support in Wraith who is free to aid Ambition in his… ambitious invades into the enemy jungle.

Wraith follows in Ambition’s footsteps and chases out enemy junglers from camps when they are found. Naturally, this puts the former CJ Entus player in advantageous positions come dragon fights or 2v2/3v3 skirmishes around the lanes.

In regards to the jungle/support synergy, we add that Wraith is a very good support, then we have a recipe for great team on our hands. Comparatively, it’s like watching a leaner version of Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon.

Wraith’s performances on Nami have been nothing short of stellar, and his spring split performances on Alistar and Braum have shown that Wraith is not just good, but has a wide enough champion pool.

From shadow to king

It’s never been easy to be a midlaner for a Samsung team post 2014 Worlds. Up until spring 2016, you had extremely unreliable players in the upper portion of the map with only a solid bottom lane to fall back to when in dire circumstances.

It came to no surprise why both former midlaners Kim “Ace” Ji-hoon and Park “Bliss” Jong-won were incapable of stepping up to the occasion to be that reliable damage dealer the team needed.

Without a threat on the roster not named Fury, Samsung struggled to keep themselves relevant at all, finishing the regular season of spring 2015 in last place and having to play through relegations to end up returning for summer 2015.

It wasn’t until May of 2015 that Samsung signed a midlaner that much better fit their needs as a team -- one who didn’t require as much attention but could get stuff done. That player was formerly known as shadow; currently, he holds the name, Lee “Crown” Min-ho.

For the first few weeks, it didn’t seem like Crown was doing any better than the other mid laners were capable of. He did however show that he was versatile enough to play any playstyle his team required him to. From Azir and Viktor to Fizz and Leblanc, Crown had laid down enough ground work to show that he was capable of growing as a player since he had the range down -- all he needed was experience on the big stage.

For Samsung, 2015 summer had ended a lot better than spring, ending at 7th place, narrowly missing playoffs but managing to secure themselves a spot in 2016’s spring season of LCK.

With a new year came a new crown. The majority of the 2016 spring split saw a much more focused crown. Making less mistakes during the laning phase and toning his aggression to suit the match up he had in his lane, essentially being as aggressive as he needed to be without going overboard and costing his team.

As weeks progressed, so did Crown’s ability to read the map. With Ambition constantly finding the enemy team’s jungler (sometimes even dying to them), Crown took those chances to play with the fog of war, constantly going back and forth in the river to where he would or wouldn't be spotted, forcing the enemy side lanes to take a step back and get pressured in.

It was subtle things such as these that truly showed how good Crown became over the split and while results were not there yet, you could see that this mid laner had a mind for the game we rarely see.

After ending spring and narrowly missing playoffs, again, Crown came into summer having already proven what he's capable of and has shown that if given the chance, he can be the carry that samsung so desperately needed.

The true match of the week

It's hard to top a match between the ROX Tigers and SK Telecom. The teams are the best in their region. This is a match worthy of a world's finals. Despite this week also including the ROX vs. SKT, the real games to watch is SKT vs Samsung.

Since SKT’s return, they've been completely uncontested. Having a meta where laneswaps are so prominent and the jungle pool is shifting to not only have hyper aggressive damage dealing junglers but also slow methodical pacing junglers, we see the return of current world champion, Bengi to SKT’s starting roster.

Simply put, SKT has steamrolled through their games so far, which include convincing victories against KT Rolster and earlier this week, The Rox Tigers. Hence why, if any game is highly anticipated, it's the encounter between SKT and Samsung Galaxy.

The match-up

Player for player, it is entirely undeniable that SKT is simply better team and well prepared for the meta that League of Legends currently Has. However, Samsung has enough going for their team that they can pull the surprise victory against the two-time World Champions.

One of the major selling points is how Ambition has been playing until now. Sure, it hasn't strayed away from his all-aggression-all-the-time-forever style, but thanks to the followup from Wraith, we have a strong way to neutralize Bengi’s effect on the map.

By forcing Bengi to take a step back from granting vision, both Duke and Faker will have to play the lane with some caution. We could even see Blank return to be the starter for this match if SKT has the desire to match Samsung’s early jungle pathing.

The biggest mismatch is in the top lane. Sure, CuVee has come a long way from his early days as a lackluster laner. Currently his champion pool has widened significantly to the point where he opens up the 1-3-1 splitpush for Samsung to execute, which they couldn't do just the last summer split.

His days of not being able to hold his own against the highest tier top laners are beyond him and now he can actually stand up and challenge some lanes… but he's up against one of the best and most ruthless top laners in Duke. It'll be interesting to see how laneswaps affect each top laner. Samsung can afford to take a losing lane matchup in exchange for a better teamfighter later on.

While Crown and Faker have clashed several times during the spring split, this version of Samsung has given a whole new power level to their mid laner. Crown now has reliability from his jungle and his bottom lane. He has the freedom to play his way and it has shown in the damage charts, currently holding the title of highest damage per minute before their match. Where as Faker is still doing Faker things, to the point where he’s basically slaughtering everybody with Azir.

It'll be very intriguing to see how this match will play out, and let's wait to see exactly where Samsung stands in the LCK.

Screenshots & cover picture courtesy of lolesports and loleventvods youtube channels

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