OGN Championship Finals: Frost Vs. Sword
On the 2nd of February, OGN’s third season will come to an end with NaJin Sword and Azubu Frost duking it out in a bo5 for the title of Korea’s strongest League of Legends team.
Last week, Azubu Frost‘s sister team Blaze lost the best-of-five for third place to KT Rolster B. This wasn’t a major upset, but nothing to be overlooked either, since Blaze is a team that is well-known around the whole world whilst KT Rolster B was founded only recently and has yet to perform in a match outside of Korea.
The two finalists are among the best teams worldwide and they both have been sporting the same solid roster for around half a year now. The finals will take place the coming Saturday, in a best-of-five format.
Azubu Frost have participated in every single OGN tournament yet and made it to the finals each and every time. During the first season they only lost to their sister team Blaze, while both teams were still under the sponsorship of MiG and not yet Azubu. In the second OGN season they faced a foreign team in the finals, which nobody in Korea really expected; the team was none other than CLG, who are nowadays known as Evil Geniuses. Even though Frost was one game away from defeat, they pulled themselves together and managed to take the victory against CLG with 3-2. Now they are in the finals once more and will be facing the rivaling powerhouse NaJin Sword. Even though NaJin Sword can be considered a rival, the majority of non-Korean fans don’t know so because they don’t follow the Korean League of Legends scene. At most they can compare both teams based on their results from the Season 2 World Championship, where Frost made it to the finals and took 2nd place. So to the Western world Frost is a favorite coming in this match.
Azubu Frost Lineup
Lee ‘CloudTemplar’ Hyun-woo – Jungle
Jung ‘RapidStar Min-sung – AP Carry
Jang ‘Woong’ Gun-woong – AD Carry
Hong ‘MadLife’ Min-gi – Support
NaJin Sword is one of the strongest teams from Korea, just like Azubu Frost. The roster was built around ‘MaKNooN‘, the team captain. The synergy they have shown recently proves that this was a great decision. NaJin Sword is a younger team than Azubu Frost; they are, in a way, a new and possibly improved version of Frost. Both teams share some similarities: they have sister teams that help them practice vigorously to prepare them for opposing strategies. The other similarity is that both teams have a gigantic fan-base, which results in quite a bit of stardom for the players. At the moment, the two players with the most MVP points in the OGN Championship are ‘MaKNooN‘ and ‘MadLife‘, the support player of Azubu Frost who is notorious for his Blitzcrank grabs. This will be NaJin Sword‘s second participation in the OGN Championship and their very first time in the grand finals, after they lost to CLG in the last season’s semifinals. NaJin Sword have proven their strength not only in Korea but also in America, where they competed in the Season 2 World Championship and at MLG Fall.
NaJin Sword Lineup
Cho ‘Watch‘ Jae-geol – Jungle
Kim ‘SSONG‘ Sung-soo – AP Carry
Kim ‘PraY‘ Jong-in – AD Carry
Jang ‘Cain‘ Nu-ruh – Support
NaJin Sword has beaten teams like Blaze and KT Rolster B with ease, while Frost had to go all out to defeat Blaze, which in turn got crushed by the young KT Rolster B roster. According to these last few weeks of the OGN Championship, NaJin Sword should be the favorite, if only by a small margin. But this isn’t an accurate assessement of both teams’ capabailities once you take a step back and look at the larger picture, as Frost have achieved a lot more in the past. Will Azubu Frost win the OGN Championship for the second time in a row or will NaJin Sword, for the first time, be labled the number one team in Korea? After a hopefully exciting best-of-5 on Saturday, we will know.