But let's get down to business.
Our first opponent in week 8 was a familiar face - the Unicorns of Love. After the departure of Kikis, former SK sub Berk 'Gillius' Demir took up the pink jersey and was just moments away from his much anticipated LCS debut. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't the dream first game of any rookie coming into the highest European level of League of Legends.
SK vs UoL: Welcome Gilius! Have a nice game!
The two teams went straight ahead and removed the power picks from the game - no Ryze, Gragas or Sivir. Surprisingly, UoL opted for a Lee Sin which did raise some eyebrows. In addition, the Unicorns chose Ezreal mid and Jinx which do take some time to show their true power.

SK chose to go for strong lanes. Jayce, Gnar and Corki were all taken in order to ensure an uncomfortable early game for the opponents in pink. And what an early game it was... SK took the lead immediately and never let it go, crushing through the three respective lanes with relative ease and not allowing the snowball composition to even reach a third of its potential. Unfortunately for Gillius, Svenskeren smelled blood and after an early kill, continued to deny every single attempt by the German jungler to keep his team in the game.
With the victory against UoL, the intrigue in the middle of the EU standings is kept alive. With a three-way-tie for fifth place, it is still possible for SK to bounce back despite the extremely hard schedule left for the final week.
The win against UoL was a vital one.
SK vs Origen: the dark side of week 8
Our second opponent for the week was the second place holder at the moment - Origen. xPeke's men have been on a shaky form recently and scored defeats against some of the mid-table residents. This fact, however, did not make our task easier. They drafted an aggressive bot lane, great mid lane poke and a tier one jungler in the face of Gragas. On the other hand, SK opted for Kog'Maw and Lee Sin in hopes of containing Origen early and turning it somewhere in mid to late game.

Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Mithy and Niels demonstrated class and managed to outplay the SK bot lane on multiple occasions, allowing Amazing to pressure different spots on the map. As a snowball effect, Sven couldn't really do much on his signature Lee Sin and SK slowly but surely began losing foothold on the map. Despite their best efforts, they were overpowered in most situations. Origen, however, couldn't close. The game had to go to a later stage in order for them to finally blow up the nexus and ensure the second place stays in their hands.
Player of the week: Dennis 'Svenskeren' Johnsen

For his dominating performance against UoL, Svenskeren is our player of the week. Hailed still as a top tier jungler in Europe, the Dane shows up explosively at times. Abusing his "in your face" play style, Sven ensured Gillius couldn't do much to help his team as all he had to worry about was his own survival in the game. As for Sven, he will be vital in our last two matches against Elements and Fnatic in Week 9. Let's hope the Lee Sin maestro shows up.
SK play their final games of the regular season next Thursday. The first opponent is none other than perfect record holders Fnatic, followed by the tough nut Elements. Fingers crossed and good luck!
Images courtesy of LoLesports flickr.

DanielPY
Former lead editor and interviewer for SK Gaming
Follow me on twitter - @Adddler or LINK
Work experience:
iNNERFiRE - multi-game journalist and Editor-in-Chief: 2012
onGamers - League of Legends Feature Producer: 01.2014 - 02.2015
SK-Gaming - League of Legends Lead Editor: 11.2012 - 08.2015
My journey into eSports started in 2004 when I accidentally caught a small video on TV from the WarCraft 3 WCG 2004 final. I opened up the SK Gaming website from my father's laptop and never stopped reading to this day. In early 2010 I started writing at a Bulgarian news website simply because I disliked how the current editor was handling his job and with time, I got to be Editor-In-Chief. My main writing interests back then were StarCraft 2, QuakeLive and League of Legends.
Fast-forward to 2012, after a small hiatus and moving to England to attend university, I decided to start writing news posts again, inspired by a couple of industry figures who have taken their turns taking eSports writing to a new level. With the beginning of IPL5, I was given a trial with SK Gaming which was successful and I never looked back.
In early 2014, onGamers presented me with an incredible opportunity to join their ranks which I took. Although I believe my 2014 was rather poor (in terms of work ethic and results), I have made changes during the winter break to ensure that sufficient effort will be made to repair that. Unfortunately, due to the collapse of the team, the project was at a stand still which marked the end of my stint with the oG crew.
I continued producing 1 on 1 interviews with SK members until July 2015. After that, other commitments arose and I figured I could not provide the flow of content I promised my superiors and took a step back, leaving SK.
If you are an eSports fan who is looking to get into writing or simply want to chat about eSports across the years, you can always find me on my twitter - @Adddler . Below you can find some trivia about me.
BroodWar / StarCraft 2
Favourites:
BW pro: sAvi0r and
Flash (for different reasons)
BW race: Terran
BW series: Hana Daetoo MSL
SC2 pro: Creator and
Stephano (different reasons)
SC2 race: Terran
SC2 series: ThorZain vs
Polt at DreamHack Open 2012 and any big final played by King
MvP
StarCraft related article: God of the Battlefield
Quake
Pro: Alexey 'Cypher' Yanushevski
Map: Aerowalk, BloodRun (100% Eastern European choices)
Series: Cooller vs
Cypher. Especially the brilliant defensive Cypher game on Aero (game 4).
Rivalry: Rapha vs
Cypher
Quake related articled: The Quadra Interview and the one and only Cypher PoV
League of Legends
Pro(s): FORG1VEN,
Faker,
WeiXiao,
NaMei and
Mata.
Position: AD Carry
Series: All the World Elite games at
IPL5,
KT Bullets versus
SK Telecom T1 K OGN Summer 2013 Final and LPL Summer Final between
StarHorn Royal Club and
EDG (The perfect Jinx game by
Namei).
League related article: Most of TeamLiquid.net's takes on the 2012 and 2013 OGN tournaments.
Counter-Strike
Pro: f0rest
Team: Fnatic (2008-2009)
Series: AGAiN vs
Fnatic at WCG 2009. Literally broke a cup after the game. One of the most emotional series for me as a spectator.
Events attended:
Gfinity League of Legends - August 2013 (SK Gaming)
EU LCS Week 5 London - June 2014 (SK Gaming / onGamers)
GamesCom 2014 Cologne - August 2014 (SK Gaming / onGamers)
EU LCS 2015 Week 7 Spring Split - March 2015 (SK Gaming)
Intel Extreme Masters Season IX Katowice - March 2015 (SK-Gaming)


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