In 2018, you could find dejected Gen.G players with their heads bowed low outside after being eliminated from Worlds. And then you could see the Korean fans do the same as they watched KT Rolster drop, and then once again with Afreeca. That was the beginning of the LCK’s fall from grace, and it would lead to a two-year journey of self-reflection on what needed to change. That change has officially arrived, and its name is Damwon Gaming.
With a 3-1 victory over Suning, Damwon Gaming has finished off a championship run that seemed destined to one day arrive. Murmurs of their dominance stretch as far back as 2018 when they had just been promoted up from the Challenger circuit in Korea -- back then they were merely a scrim opponent for the other teams, and back then, when they were crushing Worlds-caliber teams, maybe they already saw this future coming to fruition.
Suning, to their credit, did not go down without a fight. Game 1 started in relatively slow fashion as it seemed both teams were shaking off a bit of nerves. The late first blood and the bigger focus on safe plays did not, however, foreshadow the rest of the series. Damwon controlled the lanes and neutral objectives early thanks to having a more early game-centric composition and secured three drakes before Suning could do anything. This forced an early fight for soul point, where Damwon routed an out-of-sync Suning team that marched to their deaths one by one. It was there, you might think, that the game was over and we’d be headed to another quick 3-0 Finals. It was there, however, that you would be wrong.
A big turnaround from Bin in bot lane led to a dominant team fight from Suning, seemingly out of nowhere, that would then translate into a Baron to bring the game to an even gold state. From there the game balanced back and forth with DWG slowly chipping away at the map -- it felt like Suning needed another miracle turnaround to bring it fully back, but they never found that opening. DWG used the advantages they’d secured and wrested the game into their favor to take the early lead in the set.
It was clear, though, that these two teams were evenly matched when it came to individual skill, and Suning -- true to the LPL’s reputation -- perhaps held the edge even when it came to team fighting. Game 2 saw an extremely rare Rengar lock from SN jungler SofM to counter Canyon’s Evelyn, and it was made only weirder by his decision to run tank items on the assassin pick. This ended drawing a lot of attention not only from the fans but from the DWG roster itself, as it bounced around to force fights for SN. From there, Bin’s Fiora, who’d built a big lead on the map in the early game, came to dominate the team fights. Instead of relying on the split push, as you might expect from a fed Fiora, he instead decided to fight, and the culminating moment was a pentakill -- the first ever in a Worlds Final -- to secure Game 2 for Suning.
We had, as they say, a series on our hands. Game 3 started off similarly to Game 1, but like the previous games, it also featured anomalies in the builds -- both Bin and SofM took Omnistone for a Keystone, which is extremely unusual, on Jax and Nidalee respectively. SofM followed it up with a GLP build, and it felt kind of like a moment in which Suning may have overthought what they needed to do. DWG controlled the early game thanks to some key ganks from Canyon, and the pressure allowed them to once again stack Drakes into a fast Dragon Soul.
Like Game 1, it felt like DWG was in a secure position to win. And, like Game 1, it slipped away again thanks to a big fight from Angel’s Akali that led to Suning acing DWG. A game that Suning had no right winning was once again within their grasp. And, once again, DWG was tasked with trying to stabilize in a game that they had potentially thrown. Nuguri, their star player since last year, stepped up to answer that call. His Kennen effectively neutralized Suning’s desire to team fight, which allowed DWG to play out the fights at their pace. The result followed in the same mold as Game 1, with Damwon choking out the game to put themselves on match point for becoming the World Champion.
With that, Damwon put themselves on the brink of restoring the LCK to the top of the League of Legends world and officially etching their names into history. Game 4 saw no trickery of sorts from either team to open the game, which would lead to Damwon once again flexing the early game prowess that had helped them dominate the competition throughout the tournament. Early advantages especially in bot and top helped them once again snowball an early Drake lead into a fast soul point once again. This proved to be the main difference in this series -- Damwon’s early game strength and Drake control was just too much for Suning to handle and never let them get to the mid and late stages of the game where they could truly challenge DWG.
Unlike the previous games, though, Suning was unable to claw their way back into the game in any shape or form. DWG flipped the switch and steamrolled their way to the Suning Nexus in a dominant closeout game to declare to the world that they are, without a doubt, the best team in the world. In a year that saw all of the favorites advance to the knockout stage, it was Damwon who stood above them all. This was a team that was pegged by many analysts to be the favorite going into Worlds, and they delivered with a proactive style that the LCK had been chasing for years.
This is the LCK’s 6th overall championship and their first since 2017 -- the past few years were rife with disappointment, and for this young roster to now rise from those ashes is a testament to the change that the LCK did their best to enact. Suning carried the mantle of the LPL well by showing off their resilience and ability to fight, and their growth throughout not just this tournament but the year as a whole is unparalleled. Should they retain their learnings from the past month, then this team too will be one to fear going into 2021.
This long and strange year is now over for all League of Legends pros. Every team but once has been eliminated, and every player has just watched someone else realize their dreams. Damwon has done what thousands of pros and aspiring pros will only ever dream of -- this is something that may not sink in for them for a long time to come, but they just completed a run where they did not taste defeat. And with the Summoner’s Cup, they never will -- at least not this specific moment, not right now.
