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EU LCS Spring Playoffs: Quarterfinals recap

Who is going on to face G2 Esports and H2K in the semifinals? Let's find out with Reggie.

In case you were stuck without internet for some reason and missed all the matches this weekend, the landscape of EU's playoff race post-quarterfinals is not looking quite like many expected. The kings of old, Fnatic and Origen, who battled in last season's Summer finals, found themselves in lower standings than any would have thought coming into the 2016 playoffs. Despite their lowly regular season results, the kings have returned to their former glory in the postseason, with both squads making it out of the quarterfinals. Let's figure out how it happened.

Fnatic vs. Team Vitality

It would be easy to pin Fnatic's Game 1 victory purely on Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten and his pocket Kassadin pick. However, a lot of Team Vitality's failure stemmed also from a pure bungling of the early lane swaps with Lucas "Cabochard" Simon-Meslet getting completely caught out and killed by Febiven and Noh "Gamsu" Yeong-jin while solo-pushing his lane far too much without supporting pressure on the other side of the map.

Falling behind early against Fnatic's hard-scaling comp, Team Vitality tried to push the tempo off with an early Baron bait. Unable to take down the biting Fnatic members quickly, Vitality were quickly pushed out by a teleporting Kassadin on their backside. From there, Fnatic were able to successfully bait the Baron into seamless kill on Ilyas "Shook" Hartsema's Gragas which ultimately forced the subsequent 4v5 teamfight that led to disaster for Vitality.

Game 2 looked to have a similar story to Game 1 with Vitality struggling early and often against Fnatic's double-teleport comp, which led to another bulldozing of a game with Fnatic reigning on top. Vitality wouldn't go off silently, making a significant dent in Fnatic's hopes with a double-teleport comp of their own in Game 3. Erlend "Nukeduck" Holm was able to push back on Fnatic's early pressure with his signature Gangplank and come back into their usual dominant map-pressure-centric rotations.

All that was undone though, as Game 4 would prove to be the nail in Vitality's coffin in a very tight matchup. Double-teleport teamfight-centric comps for both teams would lead to almost continous fighting in one of the bloodiest games we've seen in the playoffs so far. Febiven ultimately would cement his team's trip to his home country, with clutch teleports and Lissandra ults that would lead to Fnatic's victory over Vitality.

FNC 3 - VIT 1

Origen vs. Unicorns of Love

This series might have been a little more predictable going in, as Unicorns of Love looked like a team that had lost their way by the end of the split. Typically this season, UOL wins were clean and coordinated affairs, but the last few weeks showed cracks in the armor they had built up with atypical losses to lower-ranked teams. Despite a really poor showing at IEM Katowice, Origen, on the other hand, were coming into the playoffs on an upswing, thanks to the return of Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño.

In a series that saw no xPeke appearances, OG managed to show that they are a battle hardened team to be feared in these playoffs off the back of some really uncharacteristic macro mistakes made by UOL. Kiss "Vizicsacsi" Tamás in particular was caught out alone far too often, both in teamfights and in lane swaps, which would become a worrying trend for UOL. That being said, Game 1 was a close game between the two, with glaring mistakes being made on both sides of the Rift. However, it was OG who was able to turn their bronze mistakes into gold, a Baron, and victory.

Game 2 would see Vizicsacsi getting caught out yet again within the first two minutes of the game, this time on Gangplank. UOL would bounce back off successful tower dives, but Vizi continuing to get caught by OG made creating any sort of momentum really difficult. UOL would almost manage to pull the comeback off, but would finally lose the game off an ill-advised Baron call that would pull the Unicorns into a disasterous and game-ending teamfight.

Game 3 would see even more chaos and you can be sure that the Unicorns of old would have reveled in it. This time, it would be their downfall as the mistakes ultimately cost them the game and the series. Origen, on the other hand, played as the UOL of old, being largely dependent on their ability to make less mistakes than their opposition and purely out-teamfight their opponents to get them wins. And who better to do that to than Unicorns of Love?

OG 3 - UOL 0

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