The Winter Champions are looking to take down up and coming players of SK Gaming to secure Top 4 twice in a row.
The 2023 League of Legends EMEA Championship Spring Groups Stage is coming to an end! Team BDS and Team Vitality have already secured their spots in the Spring Playoffs, while Astralis and KOI are only an arm’s length away from qualifying. Fnatic will clash with MAD Lions to decide who plays the last match of Group A, while former Champs G2 Esports are looking to take SK Gaming down in order to advance.
G2 Esports
Rasmus “Caps” Borregaard Winther and co. have surprised everyone, and not in a positive way: they failed to get through KOI, a team which has a very predictable playstyle opposing to G2. The 2023 LEC Winter Champions pulled a new trick out of their sleeve by picking Pantheon top twice in a row, but Sergen “BrokenBlade” Celik have only managed to play The Unbreakable Spear successfully once – while in the second match, he spent a whopping 90 seconds in the top lane.
However, that doesn’t diminish the achievements of G2 Esports this year. They were still the best team in the previous season of the LEC, beating MAD Lions 3-0 in the finals, and they were still one of the strongest in the Regular Season of Spring – but they outright refuse to play the meta, which sometimes is more a curse than a blessing.
SK Gaming
SK on the other hand like to stick to the meta more than they should. The young players have finished 5th in the Spring Season but made Top 4 back in Winter out of the blue. While they couldn’t be as dominant in the second split of the LEC, they had some great performances, especially when Mark “Markoon” van Woensel could lead the charge in the early game, while either Daniel “Sertuss” Gamani, Joel “Irrelevant” Miro Scharoll or rookie Thomas “Exakick” Foucou could be the threat in the lategame.
Sadly, while SK Gaming has almost perfected their strategy, they have become a bit too predictable by the time Spring Split rolled around. They only beat the weakest team (and BDS for some reason) in the Regular Season, and the Swiss team has taken it’s revenge by beating SK 2-0, knocking them down to the lower bracket. Markoon and his teammates hopefully had enough time to practice some new tactics this week, as they will need all the weapons against G2.
G2 Esports didn’t have a hard time against SK Gaming when they met in the Spring Regular Season, with both BrokenBlade and Martin “Yike” Sundelin having a stellar performance on tanks, while Steven “Hans sama” Liv busted out his trusty Kalista. SK played their comfort/meta picks, but it didn’t pay off that well. This match will be the battle of predictability and anarchy in the drafts, and even though meta-abusers KOI have beat G2 2-1, we believe that SK Gaming will not make the Top 4 this time around.
The 2023 LEC Spring Groups continue this Saturday, with Fnatic and MAD Lions duking it out at 6PM CEST, while SK and G2 play at 9PM CEST! Don’t miss the conclusion of Group Stage!