Will the Real SKT Faker Please Stand Up?

It’s going to be an all-out brawl in Taipei tomorrow (early tomorrow morning for the West Coast) to decide which team will earn the right to play Team Liquid in the MSI 2019 Grand Finals. Will it be Europe’s G2 Esports or Korea’s SK Telecom T1 moving out of the semifinals, sending the loser home? 

After a delightfully historic upset yesterday -- in which North America’s Team Liquid dominated reigning World Champions Invictus Gaming -- people might be sad to know that Saturday’s semifinal matchup is far closer of a head-to-head. 

G2 Owned Groups 

In the Group Stage of MSI, each team has to play the other 5 teams that qualified for the portion of the tournament twice, playing 10 games total across five days. Twice these two teams met in that stage, and twice G2 Esports won and walked away with almost perfectly convincing victories. 

“Because we lost to them, I really want to beat them.” Mata, SK Telecom T1

SK Telecom T1 will always have the Faker card, but is that enough in 2019? It sure doesn’t look like it. SKT is still a fantastic team. They managed to secure the 2nd seed going into the knockout stage, but their performances in their loses were far more telling than their victories. It was one of those situations where SKT fans got extra worried, and fans of everyone else got excited. At the end of the day, though, this is still Faker and Teddy, and the rest of SKT, who at any moment can turn it to a whole other level. 

“They are SKT, you know, there’s not much else to say …” - Perkz, G2 Esports

So much focus in the matchup between SKT and G2 throughout groups was in the mid-lane, where most people would argue no one on earth is as skilled as the legendary Faker, but the hall-of-famer didn’t quite hold up. 

Center Aisle of Attention

That being said, everyone should pay a ton of attention to that mid-lane matchup. In the off-season, G2 Esports’ Caps famously left his World Championship runner-up team in order to join G2. Once he got there, the expert mid-laner they already had shifted very successfully to the bot-lane. Now, on one of the biggest international stages in all of Esports, the new-look G2 Esports is pitted against SKT in a do-or-die elimination stage. 

“I’m confident that they will show up, and I’m confident that Faker will play really well in the series.” - Caps, G2 Esports

Faker, as we mentioned, hasn’t been as consistent lately as he has been in the past, but that’s where his supporting cast comes in. With Khan, Clid, Teddy, and Mata surrounding him, Faker can to be a little less prolific than earlier in his career. However, if there’s ever a time for the clutch Faker to awaken, it’s now. 

“We are a team whose goal is to win so we intend on winning the Semifinals.” Faker, SK Telecom T1

Sitting across the lane from Faker is inarguably the best mid-laner ever to represent Europe, and while some often take the region lightly, SKT know that G2 is for real. This entire best-of-five might boil down to which Faker shows up on Saturday. 

Liquids Ahead

No matter which team wins on Saturday, they will then have to beat out a fiery and unbelievable Team Liquid on Sunday. A task uneasy for any team. 

This version of G2 Esports (the super-group manufactured by sheer will) may have a tougher time ahead of them against Team Liquid than they would assume, considering they play fairly similar styles to Invictus Gaming (and we all know how that went). First though, G2 has to make it through SK Telecom. 

“I think the key is we just play like we did before and we can take them out.” Jankos, G2 Esports

SK Telecom T1 would love to move on to the Finals and be given a chance to avenge their 2018 failures, which saw the team not even invited to the tournament. 

Want to Watch SK Telecom T1 vs G2 Esports? 

Well you can do that on the Riot Games Twitch channel, or the LoL Esports YouTube channel. OR, you can tune-in starting at 12:00 AM Pacific Time right here via the embed channel below!

Watch live video from Riot Games on www.twitch.tv

So, who do you think is going to win this second Semifinals matchup between G2 and SKT? Do they have a shot against Team Liquid in the Finals?