G2 bounce back with emphatic win over Excel Esports

G2 Esports got a healthy dose of reality in a winless week last time around. But today, the reigning champs started off week five of the 2020 LEC Spring Split with a clean win over Excel Esports led by jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski’s Karthus.

One of the most dominant and versatile champions in the game, Ornn, somehow made it to the second round of bans only to fall into the lap of G2 mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković. Excel used their last pick to select Vayne for his lane opponent, Son “Mickey” Young-min.

With a little help from his jungler, Perkz promptly shoved Vayne into near obsolescence. Six minutes in, Jankos secured first blood on Mickey with his ultimate—and he did the same thing again three minutes later. He snowballed this quickly, giving him a terrifying amount of damage on his Requiems from beyond the grave that punished Excel’s extremely squishy double-ADC team composition.

Despite not being able to execute his goals in the laning phase, Mickey did display impressive dueling skill in the occasional one-vs-one situations he found himself in. Ultimately, however, he wasn’t able to make up the distance between him and G2’s carries. Excel could only delay the inevitable as they faced down their fifth loss of the split.

Martin “Wunder” Hansen was a nuisance in the opposing backline for G2 on Aatrox. He tore apart Excel’s squishy carries even without the threat of a Karthus ultimate.

Games like this will only further catapult Ornn up the tier lists, especially on Patch 10.4, which saw significant buffs to Immolate, the passive on Bami’s Cinder, and by extension, any items it builds into, including the Ornn-specific Sunfire Cape upgrade, Forgefire Cape. Perkz was nearly unkillable at the end of the game, intentionally face-tanking tower hits for 10 seconds at a time while his teammates padded their stats as they drew out the stomp.

G2 rejoin Misfits Gaming atop the LEC standings at 7-2 at the halfway point of the split. They’ll face the upstart MAD Lions at 1pm CT tomorrow in their next match.