Koo Tigers - A Team Analysis

History

The Koo Tigers are a team without a long history. They were founded less than a year ago, in November 2014. They consist of former Najin members PraY, GorillA, KurO and Hojin as well as Smeb and Wisdom who played for IM before. Formerly known as the GE Tigers they dominated early Spring Split in LCK and went to IEM Katowice undefeated. There their performance was a huge disappointment however. In the semifinals they lost to Team WE who at the time was the last placed team in LPL and had shown very

poor performances throughout the season. They still won the regular split in Korea but lost to SKT in the spring final. Prior to the start of the summer split they renamed themselves to Koo Tigers and later finished fourth in the split. In the Playoffs they beat both Najin and CJ before losing to KT Rolster in a very close series. When SKT won the finals Koo was automatically qualified for worlds as they had the most circuit points of any team apart from SKT.

Stats and Facts

KOO Tigers had an 11-7 record in LCK Summer Split 2015
KOO has won 7 out of 11 games during Summer Playoffs 2015
Hojin had the 3rd highest KDA of all LCK players in the Summer Split (2nd among junglers)
KurO was the only player aside from SKT's players in the top five KDA players during summer playoffs. His KDA was only 0.2 worse than Faker's.

The Team

Current Player Roster

Koo currently has 6 active players that play in the following roster:

Top Lane: Smeb

Smeb played for IM since March 2013 and competed in Champions Spring and Summer in both 2013 and 2014. In his four appearances IM never made it out of Groups and Smeb finally left IM in September 2014. A few months later he joined the newly formed HUYA Tigers who eventually became the GE Tigers and later the KOO Tigers.

Playstile: In the past Smeb has mostly played Maokai and Rumble with 12 games each during the regular summer split. He also had a total six games on Gnar and a total three games on Riven. It's worth noting that he won 67% of his Rumble games and 58% of his Maokai games. With Gnar he only won two out of six games, but he won all of his Riven games. In the playoffs he mostly played Fizz, Lulu, Malphite and Rumble with two games each. Smeb is a player that has had most success on splitpushing champions like Riven or Jayce in the past. With the upcoming meta shift away from tanks and towards more splitpush and skirmish oriented Bruisers, Smeb is a player to watch out for.

Jungle: Hojin

In May 2014 Hojin joined Najin Black Sword and changed his Summoner Name to Lee. In Champions Summer 2014 they won their group but lost to SK Telecom T1 S in the Quarter Finals. In late October Lee left Najin and joined shortly after the newly formed HUYA Tigers. After their second place finish in Champions spring. 2015 he renamed himself to Hojin again. He currently shares the Jungle position with Wisdom. He is considered the weaker player mechanically but his shotcalling and teamplay are superior. He will almost always build Sightstone and play a very supportive style. In the regular Season he played less games than Wisdom, however he has played all 11 playoff games in the Summer playoffs.

Playstile: Hojin's most played Champion during the regular split has been Evelynn who he played 8 times and won 7 of it. He also played three games on Gragas and Rek'Sai each. In the playoffs Hojin played Rek'Sai six times and Gragas three times. He has a 67% win ratio on both of these champions. Hojin has not diverged from standard jungle Champions at all. He had one game on Trundle but aside from that he has only played meta champions during the whole split.

Jungle: Wisdom

Wisdom played for IM2 in Champions Summer 2014 where they failed to make it out of groups. After the “one team per organisation” reform in Korea he joined IM's main roster and played with them in Champions Spring 2015. However he left the organisation in February partway through the Split. In May he joined the KOO Tigers and since then shares the jungle position with Hojin. Although Wisdom played more games during the regular split than Hojin and was considered the better player in terms of his early game and his Mechanics, he did not play a single game in the playoffs, which lead to many experts believing that Hojin will be the starting jungler for KOO at worlds. His playstile is more carry oriented than Hojin's and he is not as good at shotcalling.

Playstile: With nine games on Gragas, seven games on Evelynn and five games on Rek'Sai Wisdom's Champion pool is very similar to Hojin's. He won 78% of his Gragas games, but his win rates on Evelynn and Rek'Sai are only at 43% and 40% respectively. Like Hojin Wisdom did not pick any Champions that do not fit into the meta.

Mid Lane: KurO

KurO played for IM2 in Season 3 (2013) and the 2014 season in three consecutive OGN Champions. They never made it out of groups, he left the team in May 2014 and joined Najin Black Sword. Together with Hojin he played Champions Summer with Najin and made it to the Quarter Finals for the first time. He then left the team together with Hojin in the end of October and joined the newly found HUYA Tigers.

Playstile: KurO has played a versatility of Champions. He played 10 games of Viktor, 6 games of Azir, five games of Kassadin and Varus and three games each on Cassiopeia, Lulu and Twisted Fate. His Win rate is quite high on most of these Champions. With 80% or more on Viktor, Kassadin, Varus and TF, it is worth noting that he has yet to win a single game on Azir. In the playoffs he played a lot of different champions only picking Viktor more than twice. His Champion pool seems very big however, being unable to play Azir properly is a huge flaw. Luckily for him many Assassins will come back into the meta which will most likely reduce the importance of Azir to a certain degree. However, he has not looked as strong on Assassins and his best Champion Viktor has been weakened a lot.

ADC: PraY

PraY played for Najin (Black) Sword since May 2012. In Champions Summer 2012 his team finished third and later qualified for Worlds where they lost 0-2 to the eventual champions Taipei Assassins in the Quarter Finals. In 2013 Najin Sword won OGN Champions Winter but lost in Quarter Finals of Champions Spring. It all went worse in Champions Summer where the now renamed Team failed to make it out of groups. However they still had enough circuit points to qualify for worlds again. There they played very well and almost won the semi finals against the eventual champions SKT T1. In 2014 Najin Black Sword failed to make it out of groups in both, Winter and Spring, and PraY eventually would leave the team in May 2014, just before KurO and Hojin thought about joining them. He was without a team for half a year before joining HUYA Tigers in November 2014.

Playstile: PraY has mainly stuck with the same two Champions for the whole regular season: Corki and Sivir. On no other Champion has he played more than a couple of games. His win rate on both Champions is between 65% and 70%. In the playoffs he has played neither of the two but instead his main picks were Ashe and Kog'Maw. Although the latter has not been that successful. With only a 25% win ratio, he has won all three of his Ashe games. PraY played a lot of Champions once which leads to the conclusion that his Champion pool is fairly large but his team did not practice with many of them.

Support: GorillA

GorillA played for Najin White Shield since season 3. In his first Champions they made it to the Quarter finals but lost to CJ Entus Frost there. In Champions Winter 2014 Najin White Shield finished fourth, which was their best result until that point. In Champions Spring they went even further and only lose to Samsung Blue in the finals. In Champions Summer they managed to make it out of groups once again, but fell short in the Quarter Finals. However they were able to play in the gauntlet where they surprised everyone by making it through the competition and all the way to the 2014 World Championship. There they got out of groups, but again could not make it past Quarter Finals where they lost to OMG convincingly. After the tournament GorillA parted ways with Najin and joined the HUYA Tigers in November 2014.

Playstile: Last year at Worlds GorillA impressed with his Thresh plays during the group stage. However he never picked Thresh in either the regular split or the playoffs. His most played Champion is Annie, followed by Alistar, Braum, Janna and Nautilus in the regular season. He thereby has a 100% win rate on Alistar in seven games. On every other mentioned Champion except for Janna he has won more than 50% of his games. In playoffs he played Janna, Alistar, Braum and Kennen more than once. However,he wins all of the Kennen and Braum games, nearly won on Janna and lost every single game on Alistar. His Champion Pool looks very solid heading into worlds and it feels like he could pick up a lot of different Champions.

Coaching Staff

Koo currently has two coaches,

Head Coach: NoFe

NoFe was a former jungler for Najin White Shield and currently is the head coach for KOO Tigers. As a player he was widely respected for his very intelligent shotcalling and his very fine sense for the game. He excelled in knowing where to be on the map at what time and often seemed to be ahead of his opponents. As a coach he might very likely be the major factor why KOO Tigers are one of the best teams in the world at macro play and mid to late game strategy.

Coach: SSONG

SSONG has been a former player for the Najin organisation, too. He played mid lane for Najin Sword in Season 2 and 3. His most famous champions were Ryze and TF. He participated in Season 2 Worlds and made it to Quarter Finals. In Season 3 he retired after winning Champions Winter and NLB Spring with Najin Sword. Later he became a coach for Najin and finally joined KOO Tigers coaching staff.

Pick and Ban Phase

Most picked/banned Champions

Regular Season

Top Picks (>10 Picks)

Corki (16)
Evelynn (15)
Maokai (12)
Rumble (12)
Sivir (12)
Gragas (12)

Top Bans (>10 Bans)

Ryze (16)
Kalista (12)
Viktor (11)

Playoffs

Top Picks (>=3 Picks)

Rek'Sai (6)
Kog'Maw (4)
Viktor (4)
Lulu (4)
Fizz (3)
Ashe (3)
Gragas (3)
Janna (3)

Top Bans (>=3 Bans)

Azir (6)
Shen (4)
Twisted Fate (3)
Yasuo (3)

Priorities in Pick/Bans

KOO's pick and ban strategy shows significant differences whether they are on red side or on blue side. By analizing the nine games from playoffs where they did not play blind pick, they played five times on blue side and four times on red side. On blue side they would first pick their Top Lane twice, their AD Carry twice and their jungler once. They would always pick their Mid Lane last. The explicit stats for blue side are as follows:

1. rotation (1 pick): 2x ADC, 2x Top, 1x Jungle

2. rotation (2 picks): 4x Jungle, 4x Support, 2x ADC

3. rotation (2 picks): 5x Mid, 3x Top, 1x ADC, 1x Support

On red side they would follow a different scheme. They never picked their Top Lane in first rotation, but every other position twice. They also never picked their Top Lane last but always in second rotation. Once again the stats are:

1. rotation (2 picks): 2x ADC, Support, Jungle, Mid each

2. rotation (2 picks): 4x Top, 2x ADC, 1x Jungle, 1x Support

3. rotation (1 pick): 2x Mid, 1x Jungle, 1x Support

Since KurO cannot play Azir to great Success, KOO have begun to systematically ban him away. Generally KOO have mostly banned Solo Lane Champions:

Top Lane: 10 Bans
Jungle: 0 Bans
Mid Lane: 16 Bans
ADC: 2 Bans
Support: 2 Bans

Champions that can be played in more than one role and have been a common flex pick were counted for both roles (e.g. Riven)

In game strategy

Global game plan

The KOO Tigers are a team with similar strengths and weaknesses like Fnatic from the EU LCS. They are very strong at late game objective control and shot calling as well as team fighting. However they often fall behind by overcommitting to early skirmishes and tower dives. If they manage to hold on for long enough they will usually come back and win the game with their superior team work. With their very team fight oriented style they average a very high kill participation across all their members. They have the highest Assists per Kill of all Korean teams. Especially Hojin and KurO often come close to 100% kill participation. When they were the best team in LCK in Spring their signature Team Comp was the Juggermaw composition.

Macro plays

This section heavily focusses on KOO during playoffs since they have changed their playstile so much from the regular season to playoffs.

Level One

Invades

KOO will almost never initiate an invade but instead split up and cover all entrances to their jungle to detect enemy invades and react to it. If they are invaded they will invade the enemy jungle on the other side of the map and place some deep wards themselves

Deep Wards

KOO will use their early placed wards mostly to discover where the enemy bot lane is going. They will very often try and secure standard 2v2 lanes

Initiating Lane Swaps

KOO has not shown a tendency to swap lanes very often. They mostly prefer Standard Lanes. They have been denying lane swaps from their enemies by sending their duo lane top if they saw the enemy duo lane going top. They will even go for 2v2 and 1v1 lanes if they do not necessarily have the stronger lane match up. Part of that is because Smeb favours Champions that are strong at duelling and beating their opponent in a 1v1.

Early Game

Standard Lanes

Koo will often push their side lanes and force their enemies to stay in their lanes. They usually want to farm up in the early game and they struggle if their enemies roam around the map and force them to abandon farm.

First gank:

Hojin will almost always gank for mid or bot lane first. He usually appears on either lane between 3:15 and 3:45. Sometimes he will gank together with Smeb, but that is not very common.

Ganks:

Hojin will focus on Mid Lane and Bot Lane mostly with his ganks. He seldom goes towards top more than once in the early game. KOO as a team often force ganks heavily and can be surprised by a lot of enemies appearing in their lane at once. Furthermore GorillA will not roam as much as most other supports nowadays and mostly stay with PraY if PraY plays a late game carry.

Tower Dives:

KOO will often dive a tower and plan to get an objective off it. Mostly they willdive bot lane and try to get a dragon and a tower out of it. They will usually commit all members to a dive. If their enemy has TP as well they sometimes commit too heavily and lose the fight which sets them behind in the early game.Once behind they will try to regain the lead by attempting more aggressive plays during the early game.

Lane Swaps

KOO have not initiated a lane swap often lately and instead tried to get standard lanes mostly. If they end up in a lane swap scenario they will let GorillA roam around the map and assist both Smeb and PraY.

Mid Game

KOO will always try and push all lanes equally, like most teams do. They will never fight if they are unlikely to get an objective after. They highly value strong vision control and Hojin will almost always buy a sightstone before even finishing his jungle item. Smeb is most of the time on the lane that is the furthest away from the next crucial objective. The rest of the team will push as four and set up for the objecitve.

When KOO gets pushed in they will often try to trade towers if they cannot defend. Other than that KOO attempts to stall out games if they are behind, because they trust in their ability to win big teamfights with their strong shotcalling. They often try and catch Champions that have split from their team, e.g. while split pushing or warding.

Neutral Objectives

KOO is usually very decisive and they will commit the whole team to securing or contesting objectives. When they take fights it is not about killing as many enemies as possible but about forcing the enemy team to retreat from an objective that KOO wants to take. They will try and bait out important Abilities, like Flash or Ultimates and return immediately after when the enemy can no longer take the fight. If they still try and contest, KOO will turn onto them and kill them. Then they will take the objective and probably more afterwards. If no objectives are available after KOO won a fight they will put down a lot of wards in important positions. KOO will hardly ever give up anything without trying to contest it. That will sometimes cost them, especially if they are behind.

Crucial Items

Banner of Command
Double Sightstone

Late Game

When ahead KOO will try and get into a position where they can push a lane as fast as possible. Usually they will try and secure Baron before hard pushing mid lane and taking the Inhibitor. If they consider themselves able to finish, they will always try to finish as soon as possible. That bears the risk of overextending and throwing the game away as they have done a few times.

Again they will fight to force enemies away from their towers or baron by making them waste their key abilities while holding on to their own.

When even or behind KOO will wait very patiently for their opponents to make a mistake while not giving up more than they have to and contest every objective they can. After a mistake is made they will immediately take lots of objectives, such as Dragon, Baron, Towers or Inhibitors. Once they have won a fight they become much more aggressive and want to force more mistakes which might cost them the game if they are overeager.

Micro Play

Teamfight

Protect PraY and let him carry and deal the damage
Smeb and KurO are secondary damage dealers/protect PraY with shields/assassinate enemy carries
GorillA and Hojin inititate fights, engage or disengage, primary CC, protect PraY

Split Push

Smeb when he is on split push champions
KurO will usually stay with his team
Typically 4-1-0

Win conditions

By using their strong mid to late game KOO can fight their way to victory in most games. If they are in a position where they are ahead or even and a fight breaks out they are more than likey to win it. Due to their strong shotcalling they will almost never throw a game or lose a lead if they have one. And even from behind they will often find the fights they need to come back into the game and take important objectives that will eventually put them in the lead.

They often risk a lot in the early game because they know that they are very good at playing with a lead. If they make it work they can win a game really fast because they will take objectives really quickly and snowball their lead to victory. But even if it does not go as planned they are by no means out of the game if their enemies fail to capitalize on it. With their strong rotations and map control they will often catch over extending enemies and thus find a way back in the game.

Loss conditions

KOO often has to play from behind because they fall behind early. Because they commit a lot of resources into early fights and skirmishes, they are in a lot of trouble if it does not work out. Although they are usually very decent at damage control, teams can snowball games against KOO if they can keep up a constant pressure without allowing KOO any rest and time to farm up.

Even the best shotcalling in the world cannot win a teamfight on its own, if the team is too far behind. KOO often has shown to have problems in the past against strong early game teams like SKT.

Jungler synergy and priority lanes

KOO usually benefits from having a strong jungle/top synergy which also translates into four man ganks with Teleport at the bottom lane. If these ganks work KOO will have both side lanes ahead of the enemy team while KurO ist mostly able to hold his own against his opponents and avoids dying most of the time. You can see that directly in the KDA of all members where KurO is second to Hojin because he has a very low average death count of around two per game. Same goes for Hojin who has a high kill participation but still a low amount of deaths.

Warding priority

Deep wards, even when behind (mostly around red buff)
ward one side of the map and then play mostly on that side
→ Rotations leave them vulnerable to flanking for a short time
Double Sightstone (GorillA, Hojin) + 1 upgraded yellow trinket (Smeb)

Weaknesses

Overcommitting to skirmishes, dives, fights

If KOO decide to fight over an objective they will put as much resources into it as they can. If they lose the fight they are very likely to not only lose the objective but additionally they gave their enemies a large amount of gold to work with. They often have to play from behind for that reason

Struggling under constant pressure

Once KOO are behind they are usually good at stalling the game out and waiting patiently for a chance to come back. If their enemies know how to push a lead KOO will often not have the time to farm up and find a good fight.

Overconfidence in their shotcalling

KOO is very strong in terms of shotcalling but sometimes they pick fights they should not pick. Even if they are in a bad position they will always try and contest Dragons, Barons, Towers, etc. While they can make it work often they will sometimes only set themselves further behind by taking bad fights.

KurO's Champion Pool

KurO's signature champion has been Viktor for the last months. With him now being nerfed very hard he will have to look for alternatives. Champions like Ryze are not at their strongest either and he has yet to prove that he can play Assassins like Diana, or Champions like Gangplank.

GorillA's recent lack of roaming

GorillA has been known to roam a lot and force plays on the map during laning phase. He instead mostly made sure that PraY can farm safely and become a threat later in the game. With other Supports making a lot of plays around the map KOO's early game is even more exploitable if GorillA is not likely to show up and turn the tides of a battle.

Exploiting the Weaknesses

When beating KOO it is important that you beat them early in the game. If the odds are not favourable for KOO's opponent it is very likely that KOO will win late game teamfights and eventually the game.

To beat KOO early it is very helpful to have a roaming Support who can create advantages in ganks in Mid and Top Lane. Eventual kills should be snowballed into objectives as much as possible. KOO may not be allowed to respond on the other side of the map or if they can the trade should never favour them. Hojin will ward for his solo laners as soon as he finishes his Sightstone. If he can be found and caught not only can a team get Gold from the kill but also they can further deny vision and probably continue to kill KurO and Smeb.

Always respect KOO's willingness to contest every objective. They will not give up Baron or Dragon if they see any chance of fighting for it. Since their shotcalling is strong never go for these objectives without preparing accordingly (vision, healing, items) and make sure not to lose a fight if Baron or Dragon is available. If KOO contest anyway, which at some point they certainly will, punish them hard by winning the fight and taking lots of objectives afterwards.

In fights always try and kill PraY first especially if he is on a Hyper Carry like Vayne or Kog'Maw. Smeb can be a huge threat, too, if he plays Champions like Riven or other Carry Top Laners and should always be respected. If PraY cannot be focussed the focus should be killing Smeb first and KurO second.

Always be very decisive and keep up the pressure so that KOO has no time to plan ahead and rest.

Georg HagemannSeptember 29, 2015

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