After spending most of 2021 with Liiv SANDBOX, Prince left the team and couldn’t find a new home for the spring season. Prince spent the spring season as a free agent while Liiv SANDBOX was stuck at the bottom of the LCK. It was a whole new different team. However, when they brought Prince back for the summer season, a new chapter began in the story of Liiv SANDBOX.
Liiv SANDBOX finished the LCK 2022 Summer Regular Season in third place, entering the playoffs with hopes of making it to the Worlds 2022. There is still a long way from here, with giants like T1 and Gen.G standing in their way during the playoffs. Let’s take a look at what Liiv SANDBOX and Prince did to impress everyone in South Korea.
Liiv SANDBOX
Liiv SANDBOX entered the LCK in 2019 as SANDBOX Gaming. With Summit, OnFleek, Dove, Ghost and Joker, the team already had a strong roster and missed Worlds 2019 by a series. While 2020 was tough with the pandemic in effect, Liiv SANDBOX played to get to Worlds once again in LCK 2021 Summer Season, finally deciding on a stable roster.
For the second time, Liiv SANDBOX missed Worlds by getting defeated in Regional Qualifier. After the 3-1 loss against Hanwha Life, the roster was disbanded. Summit went to North America with the team’s ex-mid laner Dove replacing him, Croco stayed, Clozer joined instead of FATE, Ice and Envyy joined as ADC and Kael joined as the new support while Effort went to NS RedForce.
With Covid-19 still affecting the teams, Liiv SANDBOX took ninth place in LCK 2022 Spring Season. Prince spent the spring season as a free agent, taking a rest and working hard to come back stronger. As we saw in the summer season, his hard work paid off.
LCK 2022 Summer Season
Liiv SANDBOX entered the summer season with a strong performance. Their first victims were their direct opponents. In the first few weeks, they were able to take down Kwangdong Freecs, kt Rolster, DRX, Fredit BRION, Hanwha Life Esports and Nongshim RedForce. Aside from the teams that were ranked higher than them, DWG KIA, T1 and Gen.G, they defeated every single LCK team.
The second half of the season saw Liiv SANDBOX challenging the top teams as well. Although they were crushed by Gen.G once again and dropped a series against NS 1-2, LSB took down DWG KIA and T1 2-0, securing third place and a 13-5 record. Following T1 and GEN closely, LSB enters the playoffs with a good advantage now.
LCK 2022 Summer Regular Season is over, and Liiv SANDBOX will participate in the playoffs, together with DRX, DWG KIA, kt Rolster, T1 and Gen.G. It's an incredibly interesting playoffs this year, and you should definitely watch the games live. Find live streams on Luckbox and sign up now to claim your 100% bonus before placing your bets.
Although they were able to take down T1 in the last week of LCK, LSB probably still won’t be able to challenge any of the top two teams in the LCK playoffs. They will aim to get through the Regional Qualifier this time. DRX, DWG KIA and kt Rolster will challenge them, but this year’s performance should be enough for them to steal a spot and make it to Worlds for the first time in their history.
Liiv SANDBOX does have a great roster, but them being a surprise is not linked with their strength or being underrated. DWG KIA had Nuguri join an already strong team, DRX had one of the best teams in spring, Kwangdong Freecs was expected to challenge them together with NS RedForce. LSB’s roster seemed to be behind these teams. However, they proved everyone wrong.
Prince
Obviously, Liiv SANDBOX’s biggest contributor in their incredible run is Prince. After his comeback, Prince quickly obtained the role of the leader in Liiv SANDBOX. He was there whenever his team needed him with his stable performances on his reliable picks.
Out of 27 games Liiv SANDBOX won, Prince was picked Player of the Game 12 times and tied with Ruler for the Player of the Season award. Prince was also picked in the LCK 2022 Summer Season All-LCK Second Team. All-LCK First Team included Ruler, while Chovy and Ruler picked Prince as the best ADC. You can see how much of an impact he had on LSB’s unbelievably successful run.
Prince had the second best ADC KDA after Ruler with 6.25 in LCK 2022 Summer Season. Overall, he was third after Ruler and Chovy. Prince played nine different champions, while his favourite was Aphelios with 13 games (53.8% win rate). His best performance was Zeri, seven wins in eight games. However, we can all agree that there were pretty few “bad” Zeri performances in the LCK this year.
If Liiv SANDBOX has a chance of pulling the upset, that will be up to Prince’s performance for sure. If it is Prince’s day, and during the playoffs it will definitely be, LSB will challenge T1 and if they lose, they will go down fighting hard. Liiv SANDBOX will not be an easy opponent for anyone, not in playoffs and not in Regional Qualifier.
Liiv SANDBOX’s first challenge in LCK 2022 Summer Playoffs will be against DRX tomorrow. They will be the clear favourites, and considering DRX’s dropping form, they should move on to the semi-finals with ease.
Liiv SANDBOX (1.20) vs DRX (4.20) - 10:00 CEST
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