How Crownie used late-game carries to send BDS to their first LEC final

Team BDS’ League of Legends squad is in the midst of its best LEC split ever. They’ve won 14 of their 16 individual games en route to the org’s first grand finals appearance in franchise history.

This split, the team came out of nowhere, turning a seventh-place Winter Split performance into a grand finals appearance in the spring. An undeniable factor in that turnaround was the team’s AD carry Crownie, who served as a major catalyst in the team’s victory over Team Vitality last week that sent them to the LEC Spring Finals. 

In the Spring Split upper bracket finals against Vitality, Crownie had a career day. He was the go-to damage source for BDS in all three games and put the team on his back by coming alive in the final moments of each of the three individual contests needed for the sweep. The common denominator in all three games was Crownie’s use of late-game carries to their fullest extent to win decisive teamfights in the final minutes of each game. 

Against Vitality, Crownie picked Aphelios twice and Jinx once, effectively laying his cards on the table in each draft and saying “we’re playing for late game” in each of the three games. Overall, he finished with a final scoreline of 17/2/24 (a 20.5 KDA), while accounting for over 36 percent of BDS’ total damage throughout the series—seven percentage points higher than his season average, according to League stats site Games of Legends. 

Crownie’s DPM clocked out at a total of 779 across the series, the highest among all players in the match by a mile. The next-highest DPM in that series belonged to BDS mid laner Nuc, who had a mark of 565. 

Additionally, 11 of Crownie’s 17 kills came after the 25-minute mark in each of the three games. Crownie and BDS’ prowess in the late game shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. In games to go past the 35-minute mark this year, BDS posted a record of 5-1 this spring. 

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For his efforts against Vitality, Crownie was named player of the series by the LEC. He and BDS will look to wrap up the Spring Split by winning the LEC finals on Sunday, April 23. Should they win the Spring Split outright, they’ll be granted a ticket to the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational.