Misfits Gaming as a contender and jungle Bwipo might work? – What we’ve learned from the first week of LEC

The first (super) week of the LEC Summer Split is in the books and we got to see some surprising teams soar to the top of the standings early on.

Let’s take a look at the standings, discuss the matches we saw and try to predict how things will end up going forward.

The split of Misfits Gaming?

Misfits Gaming strong opening week can not be ignored. They opened up their Summer Split campaign by defeating Fnatic, SK Gaming and Vitality. While something can certainly be said about the strength of the matches they faced in their first few outings, there’s no doubt that Misfits has been building something great and it seems to finally be paying off.

The biggest factor in their success has most definitely been their mid laner, Vincent “Vetheo” Berrié, who has been popping off for them. While he certainly showed a lot of promise during their first split together, Vetheo seems unleashed and, perhaps even more importantly, it seems like Misfits Gaming has identified that playing around him as the main carry might be the best way going forward.

Jungler Razork has seemingly stepped up and showed more consistent performances, while their support Vander has always been a solid player. With Kobbe and HiRit, Misfits Gaming still has some insurance, as both players are certainly capable of carrying in case Vetheo gets shut down. Good things seem to be happening for Misfits Gaming and it’ll be exciting to see where they go next, as they play Rogue next in a big test for them.

Rough but promising start for Fnatic

Fnatic went through a fair bit of changes this offseason. With Selfmade gone, Bwipo entering the jungle and new rookie top laner Adam settling in, there’s bound to be some growing pains and the organization itself, as well as the players, do seem pretty aware of that. Despite losses to Misfits Gaming and MAD Lions, it has been pretty clear that Bwipo in the jungle isn’t the source of their problems and might actually work out fine.

In their win over Rogue, which was a huge confidence booster for the Fnatic side, Adam played without nerves on the Wukong and Nisqy showed dominance on Lucian, also showing he’s not only good at the supportive mid laners. Bwipo’s Karthus performance showed that Fnatic shouldn’t worry about the player’s capabilities, but the troubles do lie in their cohesion. If anything, their problems are mostly fixable. They’ve shown they can communicate, that they can teamfight and have the individual prowess needed to outperform. Yet it does seem they need to learn how to do it if they’re behind as well.

Astralis here to stay?

Astralis opened their split 2-1, which is not something a lot of people expected. While mid laner MagiFelix is more than capable and top laner Whiteknight has had great showings, it’s other areas where the team obviously lacks. Support Promisq hasn’t performed as well and let Jeskla down on multiple occasions, while Zanzarah is still recovering from an injury.

Taking into account that the games they ended up winning were against a tanking SK Gaming and an Excel that no longer boasts any form of identity, it puts things in perspective. They lost to MAD Lions in their final game of the week, which in itself is nothing to be ashamed of, yet it exposed the problems this Astralis team still faces as their gold deficit spiralled out of control fast. As the strength of their schedule increases, chances are they’ll fall back down.

The split still to come

In any case it does seem like this Summer Split is a whole lot different from the Spring Split. The stronger teams stayed together and seemingly will stay at the top, namely MAD Lions, Rogue and G2 Esports (I’d add Misfits Gaming in here as well). Others look to battle through growing pains such as Vitality, Fnatic and Schalke 04. All while Astralis (despite their solid start), Excel and SK Gaming just aim to make it through the season.

For the top teams in the LEC, it should be smooth sailing all the way to the playoffs, while other teams have set their minds on developing to the best of their abilities. It looks like this LEC split has lost some of its edge and competitiveness, which will hopefully return as the season progresses.

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