The League of Legends European Championship is currently more exciting than ever: After one year, the dominance of G2 Esports seems to have been broken. Meanwhile, newcomers are convincing in the highest European league.
The European top team G2 Esports has won almost everything there was to win in 2019. The lineup around Luka “Perkz” Perković won both seasons of the LEC and the Mid-Season Invitational, also known as Mini-World Cup.
The triumphal procession of the Europeans, who were the first team to be as close as no other to a Grand Slam, was only stopped in the World Cup final by the Chinese champion FunPlus Phoenix. But meanwhile the competition in Europe seems to be catching up – also because G2 makes mistakes.
Role-swap at G2 Esports leads to mistakes
Before the start of the Springs Split 2020, Rasmus “Caps” Winther and Perkz surprisingly changed roles, although the Croatian last year excelled as a bot-lanist and the Dane more than lived up to his role on the mid-lane as a “mini-faker”.
Due to this decision, coupled with the typical eagerness to experiment of G2 Esports, the first coordination problems in the game have already become apparent. In addition to inefficient champion elections, the reigning LEC champion has also had to struggle with falling behind in the early game.
You walk out the door, and you see someone you know, and they ask you how you are, and you just have to say you're fine when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it, because they would never understand. pic.twitter.com/8gCmMTeiXF
— LEC (@LEC) February 25, 2020
Most of the factors mentioned above became G2’s undoing against the crisis-ridden Schalke 04, when the title favourite got carried away to many unfavourable fights and was beaten by the King’s Blues.
In addition, Caps could be seen several times that he first had to find his way into the role of the AD-Carry. The Dane experienced a real nightmare against the previous surprise team Misfits Gaming: The opponents took him out of play eight times in the first 20 minutes when they won.
Tension at the top: Newcomers stir up the LEC
Looking at the table, the LEC seems to be more exciting than it has been for a long time. G2 Esports have suffered three defeats in the past four matches and are now tied with arch-rivals Fnatic and Misfits Gaming and Origen for German Elias “Upset” Lipp with a 7-3 win.
CROWN STOLEN 👑 5 GAME WIN STREAK 💥 this is Misfits 2020.
Good fight @G2esports ❤️ pic.twitter.com/vgU6ASp9lE
— Misfits Gaming (@MisfitsGG) February 14, 2020
The LEC rookies of Misfits Gaming and the MAD Lions are currently rocking the scene and showing that promotion in Europe with national competitions like the Prime League is beginning to bear fruit. For example, the German support player Norman “Kaiser” Kaiser, who switched from mousesports to the MAD Lions, convinced after only a few games at the highest level.
The #LEC standings after Week 5 🔥
1) #FNCWIN (7-3)
-) #G2WIN (7-3)
-) #MSFWIN (7-3)
-) #OGWIN (7-3)
5) #MADWIN (6-4)
-) #RGEWIN (6-4)
7) #XLWIN (5-5)
8) #S04WIN (2-8)
-) #SKWIN (2-8)
10) #VITWIN (1-9)— LEC (@LEC) February 22, 2020
The same applies to the Spaniard Iván “Razork” Martín Díaz, who reached the final of the European Masters in September 2019 with the Vodafone Giants against the German team BIG. With Misfits Gaming, he taught the stars of G2 to fear, just like the MAD Lions did recently.
In the meantime, every team with title ambitions has shown some weaknesses in the current Spring Split of the LEC. The more unpredictable the league is, the more exciting it becomes. On Friday and Saturday the fight for the European crown continues.
