Is FOX a playoff team? – LCK Summer Week 6 Preview

After making an upset by taking down T1 last week, is FOX another potential contender for the LCK Summer playoffs? Let’s find out in our Week 6 Preview.

LCK Summer Week 6 – a new playoff contender on the rise?

Week 5 saw some major shakeups that probably most fans were not expecting. DK managed to end Gen.G’s game win streak (even though they lost the series in the end) and T1 fell to the crawls of both HLE and BNK FearX, dropping them to fifth place with a 5-5 record, tied with KT Rolster and Kwangdong Freecs.

While these three teams are still favored to make it to playoffs, FOX has managed to close the gap now with the victory against T1 and KT. With the second round robin starting now, the chances of FOX actually upsetting some of the top teams are not as low as people were expecting.

This is because the team actually was quite impressive against T1, displaying good plays and strong rotations around the map. Even though they don’t have the most impressive early games, they are quite composed and play well around the mid-game teamfights. Their meta read also seemed to be quite good so far, but we will have to see whether that will change now that the LCK will move to Patch 14.14.

FOX vs NS – Match Breakdown

The new patch comes with major shake-ups to the meta, given that high priority champions like Tristana and Corki got nerfed. This means that we might see some potential shifts in teams’ value as they will have new picks and answers to the evolving meta. Luckily for FOX, week 6 of the LCK Summer playoffs will likely be an easier ride for them since they will be facing Nongshim RedForce and OK BRION, both teams below them in the standings and theoretically weaker on paper.

This should allow them to get more time for better preparation for the upcoming week while also potentially moving them up on the leaderboard with two wins, especially considering KDF is facing HLE and Gen.G, and there will be the telecom war rematch between T1 and KT.

What we need to see from FOX, however, is them having stronger early games: they already have a solid mid-late game so it’s important for them to get the other part sorted out. If they do, then they might be a dark horse contender for the last playoff spot.