LEC: Six teams, four spots at Worlds. Season Finals Preview

The European LEC starts its last part, where not only the best team of the season will be determined, but also the participants for the World Championship. As the last of the major leagues, the LEC has not yet begun to fully resolve its representatives for Worlds.

While the LPL, LCS and more or less the LCK at least know the teams that will represent their leagues/regions, for Europe we won’t fully know all the participants until mid-September.

Changes to the league’s game system for this year have determined that the path to Worlds will now be handled through the so-called Season Finals. The traditional points per season system, which was used to directly determine the participants for Europe or play regional qualifiers, has now been modified.

Teams still collect points for placing according to splits (Europe has three compared to the rest of the world), but the total number of points only determines seeding for the end of the season. The top two teams, as was previously the case, now do not advance directly. To be minimally certain of Worlds – that is, an additional series against an American counterpart – one series must be won.

At the same time, the top four by points have the opportunity to make up for their hesitation if they fail. For the fifth and sixth teams, each series is defacto a final; a loss means the end of hopes. It is worth mentioning that the Season Finals and the crowning of the best team in Europe will take place on 9th and 10th September.

The Season Finals will start today and tomorrow with the series of the teams ranked by points in the elite four (G2 Esports, MAD Lions, Team BDS and Excel). Below, we take a look at the teams that will begin their journey this weekend. We’ll review SK Gaming and Fnatic in more detail next week.

MAD Lions vs. Excel (Saturday from 16:00)

MAD Lions and Excel will be the first to kick off the Season Finals. It will definitely be a battle of teams of different performance levels. While the MAD Lions were one of the stalwarts of the league during the season and played at MSI as winners of the spring split, the summer split found them in a decline in form.

The Excel players have the opposite story. Those two splits were at the bottom of the European LEC (2x 10th place). The summer split initially wrote the same story, the team looking for an unsuccessful way out of the crisis. Everything changed in the middle of the regular season, when Excel started winning and managed to advance to the knockout fights. During these, their form built up into a formidable force that was only stopped by G2 Esports.

Still, Excel’s performance and their miraculous progression to the Season Finals raises one big question. Will they repeat their performance here? For the time being, the experts are saying that Excel will be among the favourites. Still, one cannot underestimate the MAD Lions who may have worked out their kinks during the summer setback.

On paper, MAD should be a much better team, yet Excel’s performance during the summer deserves respect. The new 13.15 patch, which will make LEC the only one to release on the competitive scene, will also tell us a lot.

G2 Esports vs. Team BDS (Sunday 16:00)

Sunday’s series between G2 and BDS should be more definitive. If we can talk about even one LEC sure thing, it’s G2. Consistent performances throughout the year, winning two splits out of three, and setting trends are just a fraction of the reasons why the best team in LEC history dominates.

Other than a miraculous spring, where they even fit the given meta, BDS hasn’t shown anything impressive. The team hovered around the middle of the table and formed a sort of outlier. Still, BDS may bump into this series with some surprise.

It’s just that G2 Esports aren’t naysayers. The favorite of the entire Season Finals should advance to Worlds and if not as its winner, certainly among a certain top three.

On the other hand, BDS are considered, along with SK Gaming, the weakest team of the six. Any success, however, should lead to more of a preliminary round. However, even that could be a deadly obstacle if Fnatic and Excel’s form comes together. Much will be suggested by the new patch that will be thrown onto the scene.

Source: LEC, Leaguepedia