The Steelers once had the upper hand, it seemed, but all current signs point to the Ravens being the better team. After all, they did win the AFC North largely thanks to a key head-to-head victory. Prior to the Ravens’ last win, the Steelers almost always seemed to emerge victorious.

None of that matters now, though, with the two teams facing each other in the playoffs. This is the fifth postseason game between the Steelers and Ravens, and the fourth between John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin. The Steelers are 3-1 overall, Tomlin 2-1. But Harbaugh has the last win—and most expect him to have the last laugh on Saturday. Harbaugh himself just expects a duel; their shared history goes out the window.

“We’ve been studying them. And that’s what we make of it, what we study”, Harbaugh said, via the Ravens’ website, when asked about their recent history against the Steelers. “We know them, they know us pretty well. There’s always that little chess game going on – Game of Thrones, I don’t know, whatever – with them because it’s always something different. There are always wrinkles thrown in every week, so that’s the part of it that we study really hard”.

The games between the Ravens and Steelers don’t always look the most strategic on the surface. At times, it just looks like two cars gunning for each other in a demolition derby. But there is a method to the madness, of course—how else to explain the Steelers’ success versus Lamar Jackson?

After a long wait, the Ravens finally gained the upper hand last time out. But that wasn’t so much strategizing as capitalizing on mistakes. Two back-breaking Russell Wilson giveaways doomed the Steelers. One came inside the Ravens’ 5-yard line, the other went the other way for six points.

At the time of the first turnover, the Steelers were looking to take the lead. The later pick-six prevented them from coming back and breaking open the game for the Ravens. All of a sudden, they had a blowout on their hands, the first in the series in some time.

The Steelers are hoping to avoid a repeat of that, not too dissimilar to their last postseason game against the Ravens. They lost that one, 30-17, in 2014. Ben Roethlisberger didn’t throw a pick-six, but the Ravens did convert an interception into a touchdown.

The two teams have been down opposite paths over the last month. The Ravens are riding a four-game winning streak, the Steelers a four-game losing streak. And just one different result could have changed much. Had the Steelers beaten the Ravens in Week 16, they would have won the AFC North. Both would have finished the season 11-6, Pittsburgh owning the tiebreaker.

And the Steelers would be hosting the Chargers, instead of visiting the Ravens, who would be playing at Houston. Unsurprisingly, that last head-to-head matchup meant a lot, on both sides. This time, the Ravens won the Game of Thrones, and claimed the division title, Kings of the North.