Two household names in EMEA — G2 Esports and Fnatic — rise to the occasion as the LEC Summer Playoffs kicks off!
This weekend marked an explosive playoffs start when the top eight Summer split rosters squared off in the best-of-threes (Bo3).
Among them were SK Gaming and Team BDS who took an impressive 8-1 lead in the standings last month. Despite the competition, two of the oldest names in the game quickly went into high gear and rose to the top this week.
Here’s everything that went down in week one of Summer playoffs:
LEC Summer Playoffs Week 1 Recap
Day 1
SK Gaming Focuses on Their Great Teamfight Setup
SK Gaming faced Team Heretics in the first Bo3 of the split, but the series didn’t last long as Isma and Nisqy worked together to outdamage their opponents. Even when TH started to gain momentum for a gold lead, SK worked together at every turn to halt their progress.
Game one went to the boys in purple, but the second run at the Rift saw both teams fight deliberately to find a game-winning advantage at the midgame. This time, Jankos and co. raised the stakes and prioritized drakes to keep SK from initiating any flanked assaults. Despite being forced into a bad fight, the boys in purple still got the ace with Rahel, Irrelevant and Nisqy’s poke champs before closing out the series 2-0.
Day 2
Flexibility Is King for Team BDS
MDK’s ferocity in the regular season earned them a ticket to Playoffs. While they eked out a stunningly close game-one win thanks to having better map control, Team BDS was in better form.
BDS’ midlaner showed incredible ability in the next fight with mid-air Corki snipes and quick responses. MAD Lions KOI carried out some very determined plays this time around. But after winning an uphill fight for Baron, BDS nuc and Ice quickly teleported to the enemy base to finish game two.
From there, BDS centered their comp around Labrov’s Blitzcrank plays. MDK’s scary earlygame lead made it seem like they had the series in the palm of their hand. But after nuc and Labrov led their team and got an ace, the Swiss team slowly escaped their 10k gold deficit and dealt the final blow.
Control Mages Sets Fnatic up for Success
We’ve seen Humanoid win the most when he was on scaling champs like Talia, Hwei and LeBlanc this season, and despite a rough start, their series against GX was a return to form.
GX started the series with a ruthless victory after forcing Fnatic into bad 5v5s against a Kai’Sa, Amumu and an Orn. It was nearly impossible to find an angle on them, which gave Jackies and his team enough space to take objectives game one without much of a fuss. Game two saw Fnatic adapting to GiantX’s playstyle, separating their foes to confuse their synergy and eventually take a scrappy win.
The series-ender was a complete showdown. With Patrik on Ezreal and a dive champ on Juhan, Fnatic would need every tool in their arsenal. So they shifted gears for an anti-dive comp that punished GX in every teamfight, giving Fnatic their first Playoffs series win.
Day 3
G2 Esports Are Still a League Above the Rest
In spite of Karmine Corp’s effective dive comps, G2 Esports took two back-to-back matches that were uphill fights in the early game; a victory that surprised absolutely no one.
Upset and Targamas worked well together to find cross-map picks in the laning phase. This time around, G2 knew that they needed to keep it tight, so G2 Hans Sama and his midlaner worked from behind their team to devastate KC and take the final lead. From there, the slugfest continued as Karmine’s boys tried to get out of the deficit; an effort that unfortunately bore no fruit.
Fnatic Beats the Strongest Team in Summer.. Again
The black and orange roster had another great showing as they tenaciously beat SK 2-0 in a playoffs series.
Xayah’s feather buffs made her an excellent choice for SK’s botlane, but Fnatic’s Korean comp gave them more insight in game one, which saw big trades into the midgame. The game stayed nail-bitingly close until the end. But Fnatic eventually won the last teamfight and destroyed their Nexus.
A furious tower dive in botlane gave Fnatic the lead in Game two, which quickly snowballed into a series-ender thanks to Humanoid’s AP champ mastery and FNC Oscarinin’s cross-map vigilance.
Day 4
G2’s Superior Champ Pool Wins Against BDS
The next fight pit the Kings of Europe against Team BDS, one of the strongest contenders this split. G2 actually had a harder time here than most fans expected. But thanks to their draft, they emerged relatively unscathed.
BDS’ earlygame was extremely slow. When they didn’t rush for objectives and plates, the Swiss boys focused on isolating anyone from G2 to build their advantage. That said, Adam wasn’t as productive in toplane, so the kill lead went to Caps and co. pretty fast.
Sensing their desperation, members of G2 purposefully let themselves get killed so that the rest of them could demolish cross-map turrets and take first Nexus. But unlike Game one, the second was an extremely close derby that could’ve gone eitherway. But when Hans Sama, Mikyx and Yike saw that BDS’s focus was split, they charged their toplane to close another fantastic series.
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Paul started writing game guides and match predictions for ESTNN’s editorial team in 2022. Since then, he’s covered big-ticket esports events and the latest news on tech and AI.
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