Can Nuguri and Company Turn Things Around?
It would be unfair to put all the blame on Nuguri as he is often placed in very volatile or unfavorable matchups in the top lane. A long time ago, Damwon used to play mostly around Nuguri’s early lane advantage, to the point where Canyon and Showmaker were able to do virtually anything in the map because the enemy top laner was completely neutralized. Now? Not so much, and I wouldn’t say that it’s all due to the current meta.
There are other top laners in the world that are getting huge advantages and transforming them into readily-available resources for their team. We talked about some of the best top laners in every league, and Nuguri is very far from being there. He’ll be going up against Zeus, one of the top laners that know exactly what to do in every situation.
But let’s give credit where it’s due, even though Damwon hasn’t looked that good overall, Nuguri still manages to put up decent numbers in some stats. A lot of people would expect that a player that is often put in an uncomfortable position would be sitting at the bottom of the rankings, but Nuguri is still doing relatively well. He is #1 in [email protected] (486), #2 in CSM (8.3) and [email protected] (520).
It’s going to take some time until Damwon figures out what to do not only in regard to the top lane but on the whole map. Showmaker hasn’t shown much variety as of yet. He’s played Twisted Fate 4 times already, though 2 of those were against T1 and ended up in a loss. He is 3rd when it comes to damage share within his team, he has 21.9% damage share, which is something unusual to see for a mid laner in this meta.
Was Aria the Right Choice?
That’s the main question for every KT Rolster fan out there. Lee “Aria” Ga-eul had a good performance throughout the first half of the spring split, but ended up getting benched after losing 3 series in a row. KT decided to test their luck with Lee “VicLa” Dae-kwang, and while they did have better results, it wasn’t only because of the change in the mid lane. Now for the summer split, they decided to go back to playing with Aria, and he’s looking much better than the last time we saw him on the LCK stage.
- 4.1 KDA
- 9 CSM
- 394 GPM
- 72.1% KP
- 24.7%
It’s very clear that Aria is far from being the main carry for KT, but he’s had a good impact within their games overall. We should expect him to play something like Azir or Corki against Showmaker because he shouldn’t fight fire with fire versus someone like him. As long as he is in a comfortable situation in the lane, he shouldn’t have any issues against the Canyon Showmaker combo. But we have to mention that KT’s main concern isn’t their mid laner right now as they have other things they should worry about.
KT Rolster shouldn’t be only aiming to win against Damwon but they should be looking for a steady improvement throughout the regular season as their chances to get into playoffs aren’t slimmer compared to the last split. This roster has the potential to take games off most teams in the league, the main exceptions being the top 3 teams. They were able to snatch 1 game away from T1, though it was mostly T1’s fault as their draft was incredibly bad, and that was enough for KT to take over the game from the get-go.
KT vs Damwon Game Information
- Date: Friday, July 1
- Time: 4:00am ET
- KT vs Damwon Live Stream: LCK – Twitch
KT vs Damwon Predictions
In one of our recent esports picks we talked about how Damwon is far from being the strongest contender for the title this split, at least from what we’ve seen. The thing is that KT doesn’t have enough firepower in any position to take down a team like Damwon. There is going to be a huge gap in the jungle in the Canyon – Cuzz matchup, and that’s something that DK is surely going to exploit.
The lol odds project Damwon as the heavy favorites not only because of their record but because of the huge difference in every lane. I only see the bot lane being able to withstand their counterparts, though that won’t be of much help. DK shouldn’t struggle against KT unless something extraordinary happens.
