It’s the final week of the LEC regular season as only six of the 10 teams will be able to qualify for the playoffs. And this year if you don’t make the playoffs, you cannot qualify for the World Championships.
After an incredibly surprising season, all 10 LEC teams still have a chance of making the top six. And with Week 8 being a super week meaning an extra day of games, there is going to be plenty of entertainment and drama. Here are the most important match-ups you should keep an eye on.
Excel Esports (1.89) vs Origen (1.89)
Two teams with everything to play for. Origen are attempting to avoid crumbling under the pressure of their own prestige and avoid missing out on the Summer playoffs for the second year in a row while Excel are attempting to qualify for playoffs for the first time ever.
Neither team have been overly impressive this split though Excel currently have one more win giving them an advantage in the standings. Still, Origen’s squad is full of world-class players like Barney “Alphari” Morris and can’t be underestimated.
However, Origen’s support Jakub “Jactroll” Skurzyński, who was brought in halfway through the split, has been struggling. Excel’s bot-lane have been carrying the squad over the last few weeks so recent form suggests this will likely go in Excel’s favour.
Schalke 04 (2.40) vs Fnatic (1.55)
Schalke are on a incredible run. After a seven-game loss-streak, the 10-man squad has miraculously recovered and could still qualify for the playoffs. But to do so, they cannot lose a single game.
Fnatic have been far from their best this summer. In fact, Schalke’s first win this split came against Fnatic in a shocking result and with the way Schalke, it could happen again.
While all of Fnatic have struggled, jungler Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek has been rather poor in recent weeks while Schalke’s jungler Erberk “Gilius” Demir has put in a few extraordinary performances. Fnatic should win on paper but don’t underestimate this Schalke side who have been one of the best performing teams in the league.
G2 Esports (1.41) vs SK Gaming (2.84)
Considering SK finished ninth last split while G2 won the title, nobody expected these two to be tied in the standings but here we are.
SK are a strange case, the improvement has been incredible and the squad has managed to defeat league leaders MAD Lions and Rogue in the last two weeks but have also lost to Misfits Gaming and Excel in that same timeframe.
The team are certainly capable of causing an upset at their best, they’ve already taken down G2 earlier in the split but the reigning champions are slowly crawling back into form. Last week was huge for last year’s Worlds finalists and a dominant win over long-term rivals Fnatic last week will be a huge morale boost.
Most of the time when the stakes are raised, G2 step up and reach another level. It would be extremely surprising if Week 8 of the LEC is any different.
Rogue (2.10) vs MAD Lions (1.71)
The most important match of the week and the entire split. One of these two teams are guaranteed to take the all-important first seed into the playoffs.
The two young squads have been incredible this Summer, exceeding everybody’s expectations. And interestingly both have rather different playstyles as Rogue like to control the map while MAD like to resort to extreme aggression.
The last time these teams met, MAD came out on top with a few surprise picks in the draft which caught Rogue off-guard. MAD has certainly shown more creativity of the two and Rogue have dropped the games because of miss-played team-fights which also plays towards MAD’s strengths — making the Lions the slight favourites.
However, if Rogue can have a really strong early-game, they will likely be able to shut MAD out of the game before they can get rolling.
Misfits Gaming (1.77) vs Team Vitality (2.02)
These two are currently sat outside of the playoff places but by the final day this could be a crucial game for either of them. After bringing in support Petr “Denyk” Haramach back into the line-up, Misfits seem to have more direction in-game now but the squad are still out of form.
Meanwhile, Vitality have an immense amount of talent in their ranks the rookies just haven’t quite found any consistency. But after defeating MAD last week we’ve seen the peak that Vitality can reach so they may have an advantage here.
Remember, you can watch and bet on the LEC on the Midnite Website. Click here to view all live and upcoming matches.
