Thorin’s Esports History: ROX vs. SKT was the LoL generation’s YellOw vs. BoxeR

League of Legends’ biggest rivalry in the last few years summons up memories of the match-up which defined early Korean StarCraft competition.

On the 29th of October 2016, ROX Tigers were beaten by SK Telecom T1 in the semi-final of the Season 6 World Championship. The match was instantly heralded as a future classic and contender for best series ever played. 

ROX were the reigning LCK champions at the time and many felt this was their time to overcome their nemesis and add a World Championship to their resumes, with desk analysts PapaSmithy and Deficio both picking them to win.

What League of Legends fans might not be aware of are the parallels between two other great names in Korean esports history, one also playing for SK Telecom, and their epic battles which were defined by a similar perception of one side always besting the other when it mattered.  I’m referring to the legendary StarCraft: Brood War “Lim-Jin-Rok” rivalry of Zerg player Hong “YellOW” Jin-Ho and Terran player Lim “BoxeR” Yo Hwan. BoxeR too was, initially, the greatest champion of his generation, while YellOw stood as a consistently elite rival and yet was unable to win in practically all of the most important matches they played against each other.

The ROX Tiger core (Smeb, PraY, kurO and GorillA) first met SKT’s (bengi, Faker, bang and Wolf) in a match with historical implications when the two faced off in the Season 5 LCK Spring final, the first ever LCK final after the league had switched over from the OGN Champions tournament format. SKT easily swept the series 3:0. At Worlds that year, with SKT boasting both LCK titles for Season 5, the two would again meet in the final, with the World Championship title on the line. SKT suffered their only lost game of the tournament here, but still were more than strong enough to win 3:1.

Despite adding Jungle star prospect Peanut to their roster, Season 6 was more of the same for ROX, as again the played SKT in the LCK final, again for the Spring split, only to again lose, this time 1:3. ROX would win the following split’s LCK title, but without facing SKT in the play-offs, and head into Worlds as the number one seed from Korea. This time the teams met not in the final but the semi-final. An epic and finally close series unfolded, with ROX leading 2:1 and very nearly winning 3:1, only to be denied a second straight Worlds final by bengi’s first ever official game on Nidalee. SKT won the fifth game, as they were famous for doing in high-pressure matches, and went on to the final and another World Championship.

Unlike ROX, YellOW did have one moment of satisfying victory over his rival in a significant match. He defeated BoxeR in late May of 2002, a month and a few weeks after his KPGA 1st Tour finals defeat, taking down the Emperor of Terran 2:1 in the quarter-final of the KPGA 2nd Tour. YellOw did not go on to win the title and thus could not ultimately profit from finally beating his key rival when it mattered.

YellOw too could best his most famous foe.  In the 2002 GhemTV Gosu Invitational he felled his traditional Terran foil in the quarter-finals 2:0, a month after losing the WCG final.  The tournament was a side competition, though, in contrast to the more prestigious OSL and KPGA Tour/MSL. Similarly, a victory from YellOw over BoxeR in the group stage of the Panasonic OSL helped put BoxeR out of the tournament, eventually.  Coming three weeks after the GhemTV result, it was yet a nice win, but not in the playoffs and thus comparable to ROX’s victories in the round robin portion of LCK splits.

Almost three months later, YellOW kept his form up against his SKT foe, slaying BoxeR 3:1 to win the KTEC KPGA Winners Championship. This was another tournament not considered a central part of the lineage of OSL and MSLs. In January of 2005, almost four months after the humiliating triple bunker rush semi-final loss in the EVER OSL, YellOw beat BoxeR in the IOPS OSL Ro16 group stage.

YellOw lost big finals and semi-finals to many other great players, ensuring it was not only BoxeR preventing him from putting a meaningful trophy on his mantle-piece.

ROX would have, at a minimum, have won two more LCK titles, a World Championship and reached a second World Championship final. YellOw would have an OSL title, a KPGA Tour title, a WCG title and have made another OSL final. Both would have shot much further up the list of all-time great players, with much healthier resumes to pit against history’s finest. Instead, both are defined by their unsuccessful rivalries against their primary rivals.

That those rivals are themselves the defining champions of specific periods of history and famed for their keen ability to perform under pressure and win in the clutch is both logical and thematically satisfying. These opponents would punish our would-be-champions in key areas of weakness and thus were routinely able to deny them the highest accolades.