Only one team has ever won the League Championship Series in Europe, but Fnatic sure hasn’t looked like the three-time defending champions this split. Until now.
Fnatic ran the table in Super Week, going 4-0 while destroying their League of Legends competition to jump into second place in the standings with an 11-7 record.
Best of all, they capped off the week with a stunning victory over the seemingly invincible Alliance, who fell to 14-4. Fnatic became the first team ranked in the top half of the standings to beat Alliance, showing that there’s some competition this season.
Fnatic’s xPeke hits a four-man Syndra stun to secure two kills vs. Alliance.
Wins over ROCCAT, Gambit Gaming, Millenium, and Alliance ended a surprisingly consistent streak of mediocrity, as Fnatic went .500 in every single week so far this season to enter Super Week with a 7-7 record.
All it takes is one solid week to turn a season around, though, and Fnatic now enters the second half of the LCS with newfound confidence.
The team racked up 65 kills, 28 deaths, and 170 assists during their rampage, good for a 8.39 KDA, but their objective control was the real gem. Fnatic took eighteen of twenty dragons, a 90 percent rate, and five of six Barons.
Historically Fnatic is a team powered by their strong solo laners. Top laner Paul “sOAZ” Boyer and mid laner Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño Martínez both had solid weeks, putting up 7.0 and 5.86 KDAs respectively. Boyer pulled out some creative but effective picks for his lane, like Ziggs and Yorick. Martínez took advantage of Orianna and Syndra to turn the tides of team fights with area of effect crowd control. But the real driving power of Fnatic this time was their duo lane.
Martin “Rekkles” Larsson’s superstar potential was obvious when Fnatic called the young marksman into the lineup to star last split, and he’s finally starting to realize it. The 17-year-old put up a 24/4/24 line good for a 12.0 KDA with 428.40 Gold Per Minute and a 73.85 percent kill participation. Larsson’s monstrous Lucian went 7/2/8 in the huge game against Alliance and put up 19/4/19 line in three games, only outdone by his 5/0/5 Vayne.
Larsson’s bottom lane partner Bora “YellOwStaR” Kim was also a large factor in his team’s success. His 9.67 KDA was second best on the team thanks to a whopping 52 assists and a ridiculous 89.23 percent kill participation.
The Fnatic duo lane has quickly become a dominating force, and perhaps part of their struggles as a team has been transitioning from one so solo lane centric to a more balanced approach. It’s certainly paying off, as now Fnatic once again looks like the team that wins Europe every year.
“I think the timing is good to be improving, but at the same time I’m really disappointed for our midseason and early season,” said Larsson, after the match. “We’re disappointing our fans and ourselves as well, because we aren’t giving everything we have. It’s not the best mentality to save everything you have for the end.”
Just as Larsson says, Fnatic certainly needs to make sure they don’t rest on their laurels. The Super Week environment favors a team with amazing mechanical and laning talent like Fnatic, as teams who focus on individual match preparation have less time to prepare for individual matches. Fnatic often finds themselves in peaks and valleys during the season, like last split’s 7-0 start giving way to seven game losing streak.
But as long as this week means Fnatic isn’t peaking too early, it looks like Alliance will no longer reign alone at the top of the LCS.
Screengrab via Riot Games/YouTube
