The term “dark horse” originally characterized horses in races that gamblers knew little about and upon which they could not assess betting odds. When they would win a race, onlookers could say that a “dark horse” crossed the line first.

After 18 games, spectators are familiar with each of the six teams that will be taking part in the European LCS Playoffs. There may be some changes and adaptations as teams play more games on a particular patch, but when you watch a Gambit Gaming or Copenhagen Wolves VOD, you have certain expectations regarding their play style. With that being said, none of the bottom four teams are dark horses because a true gambling aficionado would put a number on them.

Fnatic and SK Gaming claimed the top two Playoff spots in the European LCS with records of 13-5 and 15-3 respectively. Though their styles have notable flaws, it seems as if no team in the European LCS can knock them from their perches. Their edge comes from team fighting, which has become more important in the current meta game with the rise of tank and hyper carry picks. Few will dispute that SK and Fnatic are Europe’s strongest teams and favorites to meet in the finals.

H2k, Gambit Gaming, Unicorns of Love and the Copenhagen Wolves are all long shots in the EU LCS. The fun is in dispelling the dark horse and determining just how much the odds are stacked against them.

H2k (12-6)

With only one less loss than Fnatic, H2k seems to be the favorite pick amongst the long shots. Prior to the Intel Extreme Masters, they were pegged as the best team in Europe. In the past two weeks, commentators noted they may have struggled to quickly adapt to patch changes. They went 2-2 and lost their shot at second place in the regular season, as well as the first round bye.

Prior to IEM, H2k sat in the same boat as Gambit Gaming, both being teams that gained momentum by avoiding the 5v5s. With strong solo lanes, H2k could get picks and rotate to objectives quickly. Ryu’s most picked champions were Ahri and Leblanc as they are champions that can easily single out targets for assassination. H2k’s reaction time is also on point for trades, as they seldom fail to make a trade on one side of the map for a play made on the other.

H2k’s pain points are in their mid-level team fighting and preference for lane swapping. In their first loss in the past two weeks, Elements could remain even until late game where they manipulated H2k into choke points and took full advantage of their area of effect composition. Against Fnatic, standard lanes prevented Kasing’s roam and Ryu’s snowball. They were beaten out by Huni pressuring an early advantage. Without strong solo laners, they couldn't take out targets and lost to Fnatic’s fast game play.

Despite having the superior seed to their first round opponent, the Copenhagen Wolves should, in theory, have the better system in place for a heavy tank/hyper carry meta since that’s more or less what they’ve been playing all split - Soren and Freeze grab high scaling champions like Cassiopeia and Draven to carry the late game.

When Copenhagen Wolves try to make the over-aggressive early plays, they lose. Attempts at dives sometimes result in catastrophe, and it seems the Wolves’ greatest enemy are themselves. H2k is good at taking advantage of these misplays, immediately reacting, and snowballing off them and their chance of advancing past the first round should be around 70 percent.

As for their chances of beating Fnatic beyond that, H2k might have fared better on the opposite side of the bracket versus SK Gaming. Against SK, H2k would have a shot of compensating for a bottom lane loss with stronger solo laners, and they play the outer turret taking game as efficiently as SK. Then, with poor mid and late game warding from SK, getting picks for objectives becomes simpler.

As Fnatic showed in their last altercation, they understand H2k’s weaknesses, and as Huni’s champion pool increased, Odoamne is put at worse odds. A lane swap is a necessity here, as H2k won’t make up early deficits as easily with YellowStar placing more wards than nRated.

If H2k can get past Fnatic, I favor them slightly to take SK Gaming at 55 percent, dependent on whether they can beat SK to the first ring of turrets. Their odds to make finals are stuck at 40 percent. Odoamne's undefeated Maokai is going to be a big deal.

Assuming all matchups are independent Bo5s:

*NOTE: All numbers are based on my predictions for whether these teams will win their BO5s. The "Chance at Finals" and "Chance to take it all" numbers are based on multiplying chances of winning BO5s as independent events.

Chance to Advance: 70%

Chance at Finals: 28%

Chance to take it all (assuming SK make finals): 15.4%

Gambit Gaming (10-8)

Gambit and H2k are in similar situations.

Gambit likes to play the pick game as they divide up map pressure between Diamond and Edward. Diamond favors camping Cabochard. Edward takes the lead in land with P1noy. Betsy makes plays on his own and looks for an advantage with which he can split-push. Gambit looks to make every lane an independent threat so they can get kills and make up for laning deficits.

What separates them from H2k is inferior vision control and imperfect trading. In a few ways, Gambit is a sloppier H2k that goes for 5v5s when they shouldn't. Still, the way they divide pressure and their ability to roam in pairs gives them a surprise factor against more inconsistent teams like the Unicorns of Love.

The Unicorns rely on taking more risks than most European teams, which makes them susceptible to getting picked off. It’s easy to expect that what happened in the recent matchup will repeat itself here, except that given UoL’s issues with inconsistency, the odds are strongly in Gambit’s favor in a Bo5. I give the quarterfinals advancement to Gambit at 75 percent.

In the previous section, I suggested that a matchup between H2k and SK would go into H2k’s favor. Since neither Gambit nor H2k are team fighting teams and rely on picks to grab dragons and towers, you’d think I’d feel the same way about Gambit.

With that being said, Gambit doesn't have the laning power to contend with SK without jungle pressure, and the jungle matchup between Svenskeren and Diamond might be the closest in the league. Svenskeren will go for him, making it a bit harder for Gambit to take advantage of SK’s warding deficits, and most of SK’s lanes should naturally overrun Gambit’s. Gambit is an "outplay" team that can’t really outplay in this case. Then, in late game, their occasionally questionable team fighting will do them in if they can’t grab easy picks from the fog of war.

SK Gaming's tendency to win if they pickup a lane lead and Gambit's inability to contest them without jungle pressure will make it much harder on them. I give Gambit a 35% chance of taking out SK.

So what if Gambit comes up against Fnatic? Gambit has taken a game from Fnatic before, but to do so, they relied on bannable champion pools from Huni and Reignover. Both Huni and Reginover have new champions they can use on the current patch, and overwhelming them won’t be easy. With Fnatic’s increasingly tighter play, Gambit will need to rely on a jungle advantage early. Hope rides on Diamond propping up Cabochard to defend against Huni’s drive to take over the game for a 40 percent chance at the Bo5 win.

Assuming all matchups are independent Bo5s:

Chance to Advance: 75%

Chance at Finals: 26.25%

Chance to take it all (assuming FNC make finals): 10.5%

Unicorns of Love (9-9)

Now we start getting into the rougher side. Gambit and H2k have unique styles that have a better sense of execution than the currently popular styles of hyper carries and tanks. Unicorns of Love take risks without vision, have a minimal sense of disengage, and seem to fail in having a strong comeback mechanism.

Unicorns have their strengths in the stacking team fight area of effect, which should give them some benefit. Unfortunately, their strengths are also in their solo lanes, which means that while hyper carry ADCs dominate the landscape, they’re still stuck on solo laners. By now, teams understand PowerofEvil's strengths and weaknesses and will be less surprised by some of his picks. Opponents can also shore up their early game or put comeback mechanisms in place to punish the Unicorns for their mistakes.

What defines the difference between the Top 4 teams and the rest of the European LCS is that they can minimize their own mistakes. The other six teams are often their own worst enemies. This could not be more true for the Unicorns of Love, as they are Europe’s “consistently inconsistent” team. I already gave them a 25 percent chance to advance to semifinals.

If they can make it there, they face SK. SK can one-up the Unicorns in their greatest strengths: team fighting. Otherwise, the Unicorns have to rely on heavy risks to win. They’ll have to do that three times against a strong AD carry and consistent solo laners. I give them 15 percent against either SK or Fnatic.

Assuming all matchups are independent Bo5s:

Chance to Advance: 25%

Chance at Finals: 3.75%

Chance to take it all (assuming FNC make finals): .5%

Copenhagen Wolves (8-10)

The Wolves find themselves in a unique position. While they’re in sixth place, the meta has come to favor their playstyle. Everyone on the team can play a reliable tank that’s harder to punish for early game deficits and rely on hyper carries to take them over the line.

The Copenhagen Wolves have a long-standing tradition for discovering the new rising carry. The Bjergsens and Forg1vens of the world have carried them just over the line every split. They seem to have shored up some team play this season, but really the primary boon of the Wolves this year is that they have two major carries instead of just one. Soren and Freeze can play hyper carries and rely on Airwaks, Youngbuck, and Unlimited to provide serviceable peel in team fights. Right now, that’s in style.

Long games will favor the Wolves in surprising circumstances. The trick is in getting there three times out of five. Not only do the Wolves have two carries now, but they've grown bolder and started trying to make plays earlier. Tower dives and heavier roaming has worked out for them, and other times has led to failures more disastrous than the ultra-risky moves of the Unicorns.

I gave the Wolves a 30 percent chance to win against H2k. Against the superior team fighting of Fnatic, who will frankly trounce their top laner and make adequate zoning impossible, I’ll give them the same chance as the Unicorns at 15 percent. Since they have a strong AD Carry who might be able to stall out a lane against Forg1ven’s heavy aggression and fast-push while keeping towers up, I’ll give them 18 percent.

Assuming all matchups are independent Bo5s:

Chance to Advance: 30%

Chance at Finals: 4.5%

Chance to take it all (assuming SK make finals): .9%

Given the multiplicative nature of probability, it's easy to see how big of an advantage a first round bye gives SK Gaming and Fnatic, even with Gambit and H2K being heavy favorites to advance past their quarterfinals brackets.

Even if you're a hold out who considers H2k a better team than either Fnatic or SK Gaming, the fact that they have one more round to get past makes them more of a long shot.

Regardless of who advances, we know these teams. We know how they'll win, and how they'll lose.

Unless they surprise us and give us something completely new that no one could have predicted. They come out with unrecognisable strategies, and all our calculations are wrong. Only then does this playoffs really have a dark horse.

Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for the Score eSports and an avid excavator of Chinese League of Legends history. You can follow her on Twitter.