Effort's Yuumi Anchors KT Rolster's Game 5 Victory

TL;DR: With the LCK 2026 Season Play-In series tied, KT Rolster closed Game 5 and the BO5 through Effort’s extraordinary 2/1/17 Yuumi. In a 45:30 brawl decided by only 0.5k gold, KT’s five-dragon control gave their scaling composition the edge HANJIN BRION’s barons could not convert.

Key Takeaways

• Effort turned Yuumi into KT Rolster’s anchor with a 19.00 KDA and 100% KP, ensuring every winning skirmish had healing, speed and lockdown behind it.
• Jiwoo built a +707 gold diff@15 on Zeri, then matched the game-high 9 kills to give KT a carry threat in the deciding fights.
• KT Rolster claimed dragons 5 to 1, a decisive objective advantage that outweighed HANJIN BRION’s 2 barons in a game finished at 87.0k to 86.4k gold.

Trading Blows

This League of Legends decider was chaotic from the opening exchanges. HANJIN BRION found room for Teddy’s Kaisa to strike back with 9/3/3, while Roamer gave Annie a productive lane phase through a +659 gold diff@15 and 2/4/10 scoreline. The pre-draft call on Annie was therefore justified: she delivered pressure and dependable fight setup, even if it did not deliver the final result.

KT answered through resilience rather than a clean early takeover. Cuzz’s Trundle contributed 2/4/14, repeatedly helping the side survive the scrappy exchanges, while towers ended 8 to 7 for HANJIN BRION. Neither team could create separation, and every gained structure merely reset the tension around the next objective.

The Deciding Factor

The decisive factor was Effort on Yuumi. His 2/1/17 line meant he participated in all 19 KT kills, and the 19.00 KDA captures how safely he enabled the team’s late-game formation. Rather than needing to force the first engage, KT could let their support-backed carries outlast the initial burst and turn the second half of each fight.

That mattered most around dragons. HANJIN BRION secured 2 barons, but their single dragon could not offset KT’s 5 dragons, and the map increasingly rewarded the latter’s scaling plan. PerfecT’s K'Sante added 4/2/9, giving the winning side a durable front line whenever the game demanded another extended contest.

What Made the Difference

The live draft model favored HANJIN BRION at 52%, but that narrow edge did not materialize in-game. Their Annie-led engage was real, yet KT’s Yuumi deviation created a stronger practical scaling condition around Zeri and a teamfight structure that remained intact for 45:30.

The numbers show how little separated the teams: HANJIN BRION led towers 8 to 7 and barons 2 to 0, but KT won kills 19 to 13 and gold 87.0k to 86.4k. In a finish this close, five dragons were not decoration; they were the margin that transformed repeated skirmishes into a series-clinching win.

Polymarket Market

Polymarket read the Game 5 winner correctly, pricing KT Rolster at 57% before the game against HANJIN BRION’s 42% at draft close. That market lean was narrower than the series pre-match 74% expectation for KT, acknowledging the tension created by a tied BO5 and HANJIN BRION’s cleaner theoretical engage. What it did not fully anticipate was how decisively Yuumi would reshape execution: Effort’s perfect kill participation and KT’s 5 to 1 dragon lead neutralized the baron advantage. This result closes the series 3-2, with the full series-market wrap-up belonging in the series recap.

Match Stats

FAQ

*Odds via Polymarket, 2026-08-26 13:00 UTC.*