SKT and Kingzone DragonX run the no-farm Frostfang strat
We might have witnessed the birth of a new meta, but not many people are happy about it. In today’s LCK series between SKT T1 and Kingzone DragonX, the two teams would employ the no-farm Frostfang strategy in game one of their three matches.
오늘 경기 2:1로 승리했습니다. 오늘 경기 응원해주신 팬 여러분 감사합니다.
We won today's match as 2:1. Thank you for your cheering.#SKTWIN #GoSKT #LCK pic.twitter.com/aoJkcIvD09
— T1 LoL (@T1LoL) February 13, 2019
For people who aren’t in the loop with the Frostfang strategy, here’s a brief summary. A laner will buy Spellthief’s Edge and avoiding farming, only getting their income through harassing their lane opponent. As a result, you get a player with no farm but around the same amount of gold. Additionally, they provide a ton of extra wards for their team and do not acquire any CS bounties. When their item quest is done, they can then resume farming on top of their increased gold generation. It was a pretty broken system that many pros and analysts were against.
Game One Snoozefest
However, South Korea is always at the forefront of the newest meta’s. After being used in North America in the LCS, the no-farm Frostfang strategy hit the LCK today with SKT T1 and Kingzone DragonX’s first game. Long story short, everyone hated it. In total, there would be five Frostfangs in the game. Kingzone DragonX put Kim “Rascal” Kwang-hee, Heo “PawN” Won-seok and Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu on Frostfang duty. On the other side, SKT T1 put Kim “Khan” Dong-ha and Cho “Mata” Se-hyeong on the strategy as well.
This match would take almost 37 minutes, with no one farming for the first ten minutes of the game. Later down the line, these Frostfangs would add up in not only gold but also vision for Kingzone DragonX. Kingzone could actually put down a combined twelve wards on the field at once, which gave them an incredible advantage. This included their support, Park “TusiN” Jong-ik, who had another vision-based support item called Remnant of the Aspect.
SKT Takes Over
Luckily, SKT would be able to find the counter to the Frostfang strategy in game three. Again, Kingzone DragonX had PawN on Frostfang duty in the mid lane. However, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok simply didn’t stay in his lane. He roamed as much as possible, heading into the jungle and into the side lanes to find advantages. Meanwhile, PawN could not farm off of his opposing mid laner, which made the Frostfang strategy useless.
Additionally, SKT played incredibly in game three, with Faker hitting almost every single bubble on Zoe. He was a huge reason for SKT’s success in game three, and it helped them secure all the neutral objectives in the game, including four dragons, Rift Herald and Baron. The perennial World Champions won that game by a scoreline of two to one.
Final Thoughts
If you think that this new no-farm Frostfang strategy is annoying, don’t worry. Due to its disruptive and exploitative nature of the game, Riot Games ended up hotfixing all gold generation support items yesterday. Now, anyone who uses Frostfang or Ancient Coin will need a teammate to be less than 1500 units away from them. If a player is alone, they won’t be able to proc any of the Frostfang charges. I think we heard millions of solo laners breathe a sigh of relief.
What are your thoughts on SKT and Kingzone DragonX employing the no-farm Frostfang strategy? Let us know what you think in the comments below! If you want more LCK coverage, check us out here!
