After the OGN Winter 2012 finals, CJ Frost and NaJin Sword met again but this time the former took their revenge. Scoring a 3-1 triumph, Frost moves on to play their brother team Blaze in the semi finals.

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There has always been a rivalry between the NaJin and Frost/Blaze schools of Korean LoL and so the faceoff between Sword and Frost - two of the most accomplished teams and OGN Winter grand finalists - came as the absolute highlight of the qurter final stage. 

NaJin Sword were experiencing lackluster results all throughout the group stage so the fans of Maknoon and his boys had all rights to be worried. The previous encounter between Sword and a CJ team (namely Blaze in said group stage) had ended with a crushing defeat for the former and Sword were in desperate need to up their play or face elimination early in the playoffs.

At the same time, CJ Frost entered the match-up as the overall winners of the group stage, having three wins, no losses and eleven points. Things were looking wonderful for CJ and wonderful they indeed were, as it showed in the games which followed.

Game 1

Things picked up really great for NaJin Sword right from the very beginning and MaknooN's crew took a healthy early lead by taking kills on top and mid and setting up a tempo that could potentially escalate into a snowball in the mid game. It was then that a technical pause had to be called, however, and Frost got a much needed time to collect their thoughts.

Coming out of the intermission, fans saw one completely changed CJ roster. Led by MadLife, whose Blitzcrank triggered wild cheers from the crowd as it is good OGN tradition, Frost turned everything around by winning the next team fight and taking two towers and a dragon off of that.

From there on, the game turned into something resembling a .gif combination of "Best Blitz plays KR". MadLife's presence on the map as well as he ward coverage was astounding and every time a member of Sword went astray he was punished immediately with a grab/kill combo, always making the audience go mad. Frost were confidently marching towards a comeback carried by MadLife's one-man show.

By the end of the game, MadLife did not even need to have vision on Sword and ended his lecture on Blitzcrank with a couple of blind hooks, the last of which brought an acing team fight for CJ Frost. Completely outclassed, Sword admitted defeat and prepared for game two.

MadLife reaches for MaknooN's Kennen. He will not miss.

Game 2


 

A completely different NaJin Sword returned after the ten-minute break and the manhandling they suffered in game one was well returned. Five kills, a dragon and a 3K gold lead were secured before the end of the laning phase and for all intents and purposes, NaJin Sword were heading towards tying the score.

What was the most impressive, however, was how they did it and Sword have SSONG and MaKNooN to thank for how the game developed. By the 20th minute, SSONG had farmed up his Muramana and abused this huge spike in DPS to grab a triple kill for himself, ace Frost, take the dragon and increase Sword's lead to 10-2 in kills. Just two minutes later came another ace (with a baron kill on the side as a bonus), followed by a third one shortly thereafter. Having suffered three full clean-ups in the last five minutes, Frost could do nothing but surrender.


SSONG's snowball starts here
 

Game 3


Shortly after the start of game three, it became apparent that there would not be many neck-and-neck games today as RapidStar opened with a triple kill right off the bat. His Diana would continue to grow as a threat without banking any deaths and Sword were thrown in a real pickle - how can they stop RapidStar and if they do, how can they eliminate the other assassin on the team, Shy's Zed, who was also enjoying the tendency to one-shot people.

Frost making a critical mistake was pretty much Sword's best hope for a comeback but none such ever came. Although hugely in the lead, Frost played it passively, relying on Diana's split push bottom combined with threatening position around baron to lock Sword into a lose-lose scenario. When Sword did finally kill SSONG's Diana it was already too late - their bot inhibitor had fallen, they could not capitalize on their lead and essentially gave a free Baron to Frost once the latter regrouped. The defeat did not lag behind.

Diana teleports in for the triple kill

Game 4


Compared to the first three, game four wasn't the most spectacular and it took good 25 minutes before something with appropriate wow effect could happen.

By that time Frost had secure a good lead for themselves by playing the objective game well. Leading five towers to two, four kills and 6K gold, the CJs were in a comfortable position but not blooming enough to label it all unlosable. Not until said 25th minute arrive and a team fight on bot lane broke out.

With a Flash/Slicing Maelstrom combo, Shy dived in to deliver textboox evisceration to NaJin Sword, forcing their members to either flash out or die. As very few escaped judgement anyway, the OGN runner ups gladly turned this team fight into a full out victory, closing the series 3-1 and advancing to the CJ team kill semi finals.


The better half of NaJin Sword are caught in the Slicing Maelstrom. Not much is there to be done.