LEC Week 8: The regular season concludes, playoffs are next

After the 8th and final week of the League of Legends European Championship, we finally know our six teams who made it to playoffs.

We saw a lot of upsets in the LEC-superweek and for a moment it looked like Fnatic were not going to make it. As if that was not crazy enough, Astralis went on and won all their three games in the last week of the split although their third one was against an autofilled MAD Lions.

Coming into the final week of LEC, six teams were still fighting to have a claim on one of the three play-off spots. Fnatic, Schalke04, SK Gaming, Misfits Gaming and Excel had all chances of making it. It looked like Deficio would finally make it into the play-offs again with Misfits Gaming. However, his curse lives on as Misfits were unable to win their most important game of the week.

Until the very last day

On the first day, we saw some major upsets already happening. Our eyes were on Fnatic against Schalke04 because both teams were still fighting for that spot in the playoffs. With Fnatic having a terrible early game and Schalke 04 having a comfortable scaling composition, it would be all over after some dramatic early game plays by Fnatic. Schalke 04 played the game out cleanly and had the first big win for their road to playoffs. However, this would not even be the best match of the evening.

Next up, we had a rallying Misfits Gaming take on MAD Lions. Even though the MAD Lions were locked in for the playoffs, they were still fighting for seeding. Seeding is important so you do not get seeded in the lower bracket but rather in the upper bracket. The upper bracket gives you another chance of making it into the finals while losing in the lower bracket means you are out of contention.

With their own hope of making it to the playoffs on the line, Misfits Gaming reacted very well to MAD Lions’ draft. With a Sylas in the midlane and a Gangplank against Sion match-up, they felt confident enough to take it. That is exactly how they played, with confidence. They won the match and stayed alive for the playoffs spot. It left us all wondering where this Misfits Gaming was at the beginning of the split as they played more passionate now that their hopes and dreams were on the line. Unfortunately, they fell on the very last day of the superweek losing against Team Vitality which meant they were definitively out of playoff contention. And so, the curse of Deficio not making it extends over yet another LEC-split. Fortunately, this could mean he could make a guest-appearance at the playoffs.

The curse of Excel

Excel has never made it into the playoffs in the history of the organization. Not learning from their past, they were doomed to repeat it as they were unable to make it for a third time in a row. They played against Schalke04 who drafted an extremely well-prepared team-composition to keep Patrik, the biggest carry of Excel, out of the game. With a Gangplank, Karthus and Nocturne combination, Patrik felt very miserable after not being able to move nor do any damage in fights before being blown up. For Schalke04 this meant they qualified for playoffs.

With both Team Vitality and Schalke04 winning the very first two matches of the third day of superweek, this also locked in Fnatic and SK Gaming for playoffs. The remainder of the matches would be a fight for seeding, as previously mentioned, especially important to stay away from the lower bracket.

Autofill enabled

With nothing on the line for both teams, Astralis and MAD Lions fought it out in what could only be described as an “autofilled game” from MAD Lions. They swapped all players to a different position on champions we had not previously seen them on before. With a Nocturne top from Kaiser, Malphite jungle from Armut, Qiyana mid from Elyoya, Aphelios botlane from Humanoid and Carzzy on the Thresh support, this felt like a high elo challenger lobby gone wrong. Nevertheless, they were able to make the game competitive against Astralis in the early game, but the biggest winner (besides the audience) was Astralis themselves. They would end their disappointing split with a 3-0 record and at least have some hopes for the summer split.

With this crazy superweek behind us where a lot of upsets happened and some teams (or players, looking at you Jankos) had some questionable performances, we can now look forward to the playoffs. It will be a remarkably close one as even G2 Esports looked a bit shaky when not having an edge in the draft. Rogue could possibly be aiming for the next LEC-title contesting G2 Esports as Fnatic will be joining the playoffs with incredibly low expectations for the first time since a while.

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