EU LCS Grand Finals Preview – The Origin

Three years ago, Fnatic created history by winning the first split of the EU LCS against Gambit – a game that they won 3 – 2 – That was Fnatic’s start – their origin The Origin – xPeke’s Origen Back then, sOAZ was playing top for Fnatic, x...
Photo via Riot Games/Flickr

 Three years ago, Fnatic created history by winning the first split of the EU LCS against Gambit – a game that they won 3 – 2 – That was Fnatic’s start – their origin

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The Origin – xPeke’s Origen

Back then, sOAZ was playing top for Fnatic, xPeke mid and Cyanide jungler. Fnatic then went on to win the following two finals against Lemondogs in the summer and SK Gaming in the following spring split before losing against Alliance, renamed Elements, in the 2014 summer split. After losing in the finals against Alliance, Fnatic got placed as the second seed for worlds and went on to having a disappointing performance at the 2014 worlds, where they would end up being knocked out in the round robin. In the 2013 worlds, they lost 3 – 1 in the semi-finals against Royal Club. Royal Club would later lose to SKT T1 in the finals.

After Fnatic’s disappointing run at worlds, xPeke felt the need for a new start – Origen was born.
Consisting of veteran Mithy and Amazing and his former teammate sOAZ, xPeke had most of the components for a top tier team and now he only needed an ADC. The choice would fall on  Jesper “Niels” Svenningsen, an up and coming AD carry talent that even Rekkles approved of.

xPeke’s plan was to compete in the 2015 challenger scene spring split, win it and obtain their pass into the EU LCS. In Origin’s first split, they would win 12 games, lose 5 and place second place, giving them a straight access to the semi-finals, where they would go up against H2K-Gaming. Origen, convincingly, wins 3 – 1 in the semi-finals. Now tonight, they will go up against Fnatic in the grand finals, where they will try to win a first seed at worlds.

The Origin – YellOwStaR’s Fnatic

YellOwStaR, being the only player left on Fnatic’s roster after 2014 worlds, had a job. He had to build the new powerhouse. Febiven, who had just qualified for the EU LCS with his team, H2K-Gaming, got contacted and contracted by the new and reformed Fnatic.

SK Gaming Prime, having just lost against H2K-Gaming in the LCS Promotion Series, was denied from the LCS. Fnatic, having kept an eye on the talent from the challenger scene, would also pick up Steelback, the AD carry from SK Gaming Prime.

Now all Fnatic and YellOwStaR needed for completing their roster was a jungler and a top laner. They looked overseas and ended up in South Korea, where the two missing links for the new Fnatic was.
Seong “Huni” Hoon Heo who was a practice partner for the Samsung organization got picked up to be Fnatic’s top laner. Even though Huni was a practice partner for the Samsung organization, he never played a competitive match in Korea, so he was only known for being Korean soloq talent.
Fnatic found their jungler in Reignover. In Korea, Reignover played for the Incredible Miracle organization, where he would first play for the main squad and later on being moved to the secondary squad of IM 2.

Having a complete squad, captain YellOwStaR would lead his team all the way to a second place in their first regular season. Their first match in the regular season against Elements would end up being a confidence booster for the new Fnatic team. Winning, against the defending champions of the last split, with a 15,7k gold lead, 16 kill lead and 11 towers would propel them towards 13 wins and 5 loses. Having placed second, they would automatically go into the semi-finals, where they had to face H2K-Gaming. Fnatic won 3 – 2 against H2K and securing them a grand final spot in their first season together! In the finals, they had to go up against Unicorns of Love – an opponent Fnatic won 3 – 2 against.

Fnatic, having made history with their old squad by defeating Gambit Gaming 3 – 2, created history by going 3 – 2 against UoL with their new squad. The new Fnatic squad, led by YellOwStaR, was going to The Mid-Season Invitational, since they were the champions of Europe. Here, they had a poor showing in the Group Stage, winning 2 out of 5 of their games, which meant that they had to face SK Telecom T1 in the a best-of-five in the semi-finals of MSI. Everybody expected Fnatic to get stomped, but Fnatic dragged SKT T1 all the way to a game five – a game five that Fnatic lost.

Returning to Europe, Fnatic added Rekkles, the star ADC, to their roster and with Rekkles coming back onto the team, Fnatic had a new mind-set, a mind-set telling them that they could improve from every victory, a mind-set that ended up leading them to make more history by being the first team in the history of LCS to have a perfect split (winning 18 games without dropping a single game). Once again, Fnatic had straight access to the semi-finals, where they would face their rivals from last season, Unicorns of Love, but this time winning 3 – 0 and getting into the finals without much trouble.

The Origin – Fnatic vs. Fnatic in the Grand Finals?

Origen has been one of the teams that have been close to winning against Fnatic, and if there ever was a team in Europe that could contest the undefeated champions, then it’s Origen. “It’s actually the team giving us the hardest time” YellOwStaR says
People are however expecting Fnatic to win tonight, which is very understandable after going 18 – 0 in the regular season, but this is more than just Fnatic vs. Origen. There’s a chance that we’ll see a perfect split (going 24 – 0). I’d love to see Fnatic go 3 – 0 in the Grand Finals, just to have that perfect split, but I’d also love to see a best-of-five being dragged to the very last game, and Fnatic has a habit of going 3 – 2 or 2 – 3 when it really matters. The match-up, however, it between the old Fnatic squad and the new Fnatic squad, and it’s going to one hell of a series to watch. There’s a saying in Europe about The EU LCS: Everybody beats everybody and in the end, Fnatic wins.
The only question left is: Is it xPeke’s “Fnatic” that is going to be victorious or is it YellOwStaR’s Fnatic?

 

About the author:

Hi everyone! My name is Jesper “Benvarmeren” Kuntz and I’m a freelance shoutcaster that also writes articles from time to time.

You can follow me over on https://twitter.com/BenvarmerenCast, where I write about LCS, when I’m streaming and daily thoughts etc.
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/Benvarmeren

 


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