In the EU LCS’ featured match of week one, Misfits Gaming got off to a fast and furious start over reigning champions Fnatic and never looked back.
Fnatic historically has had trouble closing out Misfits, dropping both games to them last split. A large factor in those losses was star marksman Martin “Rekkles” Larsson’s inability to play at his normal level. In both games against Steven “Hans Sama” Liv during the spring, Rekkles seemed to disappear in lane and was unable to dominate like he usually does.
To counter this, Fnatic took the focus off him and instead turned to mid laner Rasmus “Caps” Winther as their primary carry. They put him on Kai’Sa, one of the strongest late game marksmen, and drafted three supports for him. Caps took Smite to take advantage of gold funneling, a strategy that allows one player to farm both the jungle and lane minions, and jungler Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen was relegated to playing Taric to protect Caps.
An early skirmish around Fnatic’s red buff ended in first blood for Misfits and a delayed start for Caps, and a later fight in the same quadrant of the jungle essentially sealed the game.
It took Caps almost 18 minutes to finally purchase Guinsoo’s Rageblade, the key item in his build. By that time, Hans Sama’s Draven was already too far ahead for Fnatic to deal with and was able to take down Caps in every fight despite his team’s best efforts to save him. Caps was never able to fully hit his item power spike and the team’s whole strategy fell apart.
The loss marks the third time Fnatic has been felled by Misfits this year. Rekkles continued to be an almost non-factor, even on a pure support champion like Janna. For the kings of Europe to return to their Spring Split glory, Rekkles needs to figure out his role in this meta.
Fnatic will look to bounce back tomorrow against FC Schalke 04, while Misfits will try to extend their winning streak against the Unicorns of Love.
