Samsung Galaxy and Afreeca Freecs matched up in the beginning round of the LCK playoffs. This matchup wasn't nearly as close as one would hope as Samsung took a 2-0 series sweep and will advance to round 2 against KT Rolster in a best of 5.
Game 1
With just 4 minutes gone by into the match, Samsung Galaxy tried to gang up in mid lane, but the follow-up damage didn't come through, so Afreeca countered it and pushed back and ended up trading a death for two kills. Both teams showed they want to make plays early on. Afreeca pushed their advantage a tad with a play in the top lane.
LrA's Nidalee put out some real damage and Mickey came over with his Karma and another two kills went towards Afreeca plus a tower. Samsung stormed back though, and gained a 2K gold lead after a solid team fight near the dragon pit, then took the mountain drake directly after which helped snowball to a game 1 victory.
Game 2
The second game was essentially decided by the pick and ban phase. Afreeca decided to use their main source of damage coming from Jhin, but the problem is that Samsung picked an all-in team with champions like Gnar, Lissandra, Sivir, and Tahm Kench. Samsung had such an advantage from the pick and ban phase, that the only win condition for Afreeca was if they dominated in the laning phase and transitioned it to taking objectives and turrets.
This came to be an issue when Samsung grabbed first blood not even two minutes into the game. Samsung held a lead for most of the game, and although Afreeca did stick around, Samsung eventually rolled through them for the series win.
The matchup with KT and Samsung Galaxy will definitely be much closer than this, and Rolster is looking to get through it to face the mammoth SK Telecom.
