Going into Worlds, everybody was focused on the top laners, as the 5.18 patch for Worlds favored them heavily, but Smeb of the Koo Tigers wasn’t really viewed as a threat. Marin and SSumday, also from the LCK, over shadowed Smeb, with Marin being on tournament favorites SKT and SSumday being the MVP of the LCK Summer Split. After beating Ssumday and KT Rolsters in the quarterfinals, Smeb was viewed as one of lolesports.com impact player for the semifinals, as Leah Jackson shows us how Smeb has been dominating in his matches so far:
Despite being Korea’s No. 2 seed, many analysts didn’t consider KOO to be better than KT Rolster, who had defeated them in the LCK Summer Semifinals coming into Worlds. KOO didn’t quite silence the critics with their Group Stage performance, going 4-2 and dropping both games to the LMS’ Flash Wolves. Nevertheless, as they advanced towards the Quarterfinals, a few KOO players began to stand out above the rest.
One of which was Smeb, who played a key role in KOO making it to the Quarterfinals for another face off against KT. The versatile top laner has previously shown his proficiency at adjusting to the state of the meta, which has been a boon for KOO at Worlds. He skillfully played tanks earlier in the year, but now that the meta has shifted back to carry top laners, he’s displayed prowess on Darius, and especially Fiora. Smeb’s been the only top laner to deal over 500 damage per minute at Worlds 2015, and he’s earned the most kills in the entire tournament at 52 (albeit he’s also tied for the most games played, at 10).
That damage per minute is first out of all top laners at the tournament. Smeb has shown that the Koo Tigers are a team here to compete and they will try to prove it against Fnatic. Smeb has shown a lot at Worlds, and you can check out all his stats over in the full article here.
