LEC Week 8: The drama intensifies

“Week 8 is shaping up to be the crucial week for Splyce and Vitality before playoffs.”

Week 8 of the LEC is either going to bring us some clarity in the standings or make the standings even more complicated as the split is coming to a close. With only G2 pretty much securing their first place in the LEC for this split, almost every other team from 2nd to 8th place can move up and down the standings with only two weeks remaining until the playoffs.

First off, we look at current 2nd and 3rd place Vitality and Splyce and how will this week influence their playoff run.

Vitality has a “split” week when it comes to matches and the relative strength of their opponents. They face off last place Rogue and first place G2 in this week’s matchups. Last week, the team had to swap in academy midlaner Saken instead of Jizuke and went 1-1; scraping by with a 1-1 week. At the moment writing, we do not have a direct update if midlaner Jizuke will once again skip this week’s matches due to health reasons. In either scenario Vitality must pull off at least the 1-1 week in order to stay at 2nd place, a 2-0 week would pretty much secure their 2nd place coming into Week 9.

Splyce has even harder obstacles to overcome this weekend. They face G2 and SK in their matches, and both of their opponents are not ready to give an inch so close to playoffs. SK gaming managed to steal a win from G2 last week in a “base rush” scenario and joined the pack of teams in contention for playoffs, while G2 after dropping said game cannot allow themselves to drop too many matches as they can theoretically (highly unlikely) go 0-4 and fall out of first place.

In the seconds wave of contention for playoffs we have a 4-pack of teams all with a tied 7 and 7 score in the split. The most hyped of the pack is the return to form of champions Fnatic. While FNC is getting more than enough press for their meteoric rise up the standings in the last three weeks.

Let’s take a look at Schalke04 and Misfits instead.

The Misfits team seems to be cursed to repeat the same pattern in performance as splits past. The team managed to have a great run in the first part of the split, and then started dropping games left right and center to teams that were not supposed to get wins over them. This week they are matched against Fnatic and Schalke04 and defeats here may completely shut them off from even making playoffs. Will it come down to SOaz once again besting his former team to keep Misfits in contention, or will FNC equalize the score in the head-to-head matchup?

The Schakle04 squad on the other hand can at least hope to stay in the race with an easier opponent on Friday in team ExceL. Both Excel and Rogue are now considered cannon fodder by the rest of the EU squads, but both teams have the capacity to ruin their opponent’s playoff chances by pulling out a win.

Finally, we get down to Origen. The OG squad probably has the “easiest” route to playoffs from all the teams in the race for playoffs. They still play both the Rogue and ExceL matchups in the last two weeks, and are looking to dominate the head-to-heads rematches they previously won vs SK and Schalke. With a 4-0 in the next 2 weeks OG looks to be the 2nd placed team coming into playoffs. Additionally, we might be treated with some charity fun on top of the G2/OG 1st and 2nd finish with G2 founder Ocelote throwing the gauntlet at Origen yesterday.

If LEC and Origen are onboard, I'm happy to set up a G2 vs Origen charity game with @xPekeLoL and myself starting. All funds go to a charity of your choice. If I get ganked by Trashy before Jankos comes to my lane, I'm allowed to leave the game. No VAR allowed. — Carlos – ocelote (@CarlosR) March 5, 2019

For those seeking to throw down some bets. G2 and Origen are at the best odds of winning both of their matchups this week.