LCK Rule The Rift Tournament: Battle of Positions Starts Soon

After T1’s historic run at League of Legends Worlds culminating just two months ago, we’ve been itching for some more competition…or maybe just I have. That all changes in a few hours as the League of Legends Champions Korea(LCK) is starting us up just where we left off, Seoul, South Korea. The LCK is hosting a kickoff tournament to start off Season 14 on a big note. Last year’s tournament we saw Faker play Deft in a round of 1v1 showdowns, and it was just them two. I imagine it was entertaining for 3 kills and then jumped the baron pit with a blast cone. This year, we’re getting a tournament of 5 teams comprised of LCK professionals with patch 14.1 on the very new map. The unique thing about these teams is that each one is comprised of the same position, meaning Faker’s team will be a team of 5 midlaners. Finally we’ll get to see what position of League players is the best.

So 5 teams, every team is filled with the same position, but how do you fill the team? Well players put a vote on who the captains should be, and then they drafted like a pickup basketball game. T1 dominates the voting, where only the bot lane is the outlier not captained by a T1 member. Bot lane is captained by Deft, who many claim to be the most decorated adc in history and also an alumni to the same school Faker went to. People don’t talk about that enough. Draft rules seemed simple enough, but after reading and checking at the image posted, something must’ve been wrong. Word is that 2 drafts happened, one starting top left of the graphic with Faker’s team, and another starting for Deft’s at round 3. Each draft would only allow 1 member from each LCK team to be selected, meaning if Faker selected a GenG member(Chovy), then no other GenG member could be taken in that draft. Sounds simple enough…until I see a total of 3 GenG players and 0 of them were captains. It’s funny because GenG was the team they ever used for the example while the image shows the contradiction. My guess is that too many people are still on holiday, but you would need the other 5 position players from the other teams to all not be available for this kickoff tournament. Maybe they just wanted the #2 LCK team to get an extra spot *shrugs*. Either way, the tournament format is posted below and should be a thrilling early morning here in the states.

My pick for the tournament winner is gonna be the supports. Not only do most supports have the most previous experience of other roles traditionally, their role is build up their teammate to win the bot lane. That kind of sacrifice is what all these members share in order to play for the objectives and find a way to win, even if the kill count is not in their favor. My dark horse is the top laners. Many will say that they don’t even watch the minimap as they do their best to pressure towers, and some are probably right. Thing is, the most recent MVPs of Worlds Finals have been top laners. They show out on the big stage, and know macro well enough to take any advantage they get to snowball it into enemy towers going down. Maybe I’ll be completely wrong as Faker walks it down the mid lane in Faker fashion, but I’m going to have an amazing time watching it all the same at 2 AM here in Phoenix.

4 AM EST start Jan 9, 2024
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