Missed any of the action this past week at EU LCS? We got your back with a few highlights and an overall rundown of the teams.
Thirty total games into the 2016 European League Championship Series Spring Split and we're starting to see how the teams are stacking up against each other. We can definitively start to make out the top teams and there are a few surprises. First, let's check out some highlights of key matches that occurred this past week:
Highlights
G2 Esports vs Fnatic
Coming into this match, the rookie squad G2 Esports was facing other tough test against Fnatic, having been effectively handeled by H2K the previous week. Fnatic did a good job of taking advantage of Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek's inexperience of playing carry style Top Lane champions like Fiora. But, their communication looked really off at times with Jungler Lee "Spirit" Da-yun getting caught out multiple times while aggressively roaming and the team giving G2's poke comp much too much space to succeed. Fnatic also made the mistake of leaving Corki open for G2's Luka "Perkz" Perkovic who showed why the champion should be feared in the Mid Lane.
H2K vs Team Vitality
In our game of the week, there were a lot of questions coming in with the absence of H2K's starting Mid Laner Ryu "Ryu" Sang-uk due to visa issues. There were even more questions when Team Vitality decided to leave Gangplank up for H2K's Andrei "Odoamne" Pascu. Despite giving up a disasterous First Blood, Vitality did a fine job of focusing Odoamne down early to try and prevent him from becoming a threat. They also did a good job taking advantage of the inexperience of H2K's sub Mid Laner Marcin "Selfie" Wolski. But Vitality's Petter "Hjärnan" Freyschuss got caught out too many times on Miss Fortune and was ultimately outperformed by H2K's Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou.
Standings
There are now two teams tied for first at 5-1. One of them we expected in the form of H2K. The other is a shock with G2 Esports outplaying both Fnatic and Unicorns of Love to grab the top spot. A lot of credit has to be given to G2 for adapting and showing someting new this week with back-to-back poke compositions. If the teamwork and synergy continues, they will prove to be a challenge for any team and definitely be in the running for winning playoffs moving forward.
Origen continued to show signs of improvement as they swept the week and improved to 3-3, tying themselves in the middle of the pack with Elements and Fnatic. On the other hand, even with a new Jungler, GIANTS Gaming continued to show similar mistakes from earlier weeks and, as a result, were still unable to secure their first win. Unless they are able to turn things around somehow, they are certainly in the running to complete the anti-dream of 0-18.
Will Origen push themselves back to the top of the pack? When will Ryu be back for H2K? These are questions to look for in the coming weeks of the EU LCS.
