Following the European LCS Final between Fnatic and Origen, I had some time to talk to analytical caster, Martin "Deficio" Lynge about his take on the Final, the top three teams at Europe, and his picks to watch going into the World Championship.

This was a pretty close final. The analyst desk predicted a 3-0 for Fnatic, but you weren't on the desk. Did you agree with their predictions going into the series?

I did not agree with the guys on the analyst desk. We talked about it beforehand. I was almost 100% sure Origen would get at least one game. I was a little bit surprised they got two games, and I was a little bit surprised they almost won the last game. I didn't expect Origen to take the series, but they're a good enough team, and they can match Fnatic in a lot of ways. At least one game was expected. I think the outcome was the best one could hope for. Fnatic got first seed, and we got five games.

What do you think lead to Origen's recent improvements that we've seen in Playoffs?

Origen, as a team, when they came into the EU LCS, they kind of brute-forced their way forward. They were individually better than a lot of the other teams we had. So they played really quick games and just outplayed teams in the early game. They have built onto that. They've incorporated more strategy as part of their play. They're very good, in my opinion, at setting up three lanes at once: side lane control, being able to split farm on three carries. It's not an easy task. You have sOAZ on a Gangplank, Niels on a hyper carry, you know, you have to make sure everyone gets enough farm to be effective, and they do that very, very well.

I aslo think — this is something that also goes back to the old Fnatic — players like xPeke and sOAZ have so much experience and a fantastic ability to read when they can go for a risky play and when it can pay off. So you get these solo actions, sometimes from xPeke, sometimes from sOAZ, and when they are on carry champions, they can basically win the game for you. We saw this multiple times. We saw sOAZ try to split-push his way to victory. We've seen xPeke with the backdoor. I think, just their individual ability, along with — I wouldn't say advanced strategy, but fairly simple strategy — has really helped them out.

I do think they have fixed a lot of the pick and ban problems they used to have. There was often — not comps I would agree with where we would have full magic compositions where they wouldn't really get the lead early on, so they would just fall behind and lose the game, or they just simply had no winning lanes. That has been fixed coming into Playoffs, and I think it's been a big deal for Origen.

In that case, do you expect them to qualify for Worlds through the Gauntlet?

Oh yeah, I definitely expect Origen to be heavy, heavy favorites. I want to say ROCCAT is the team that can challenge them, but whenever I put my faith into ROCCAT, they disappoint, and they lose. Origen — I'm expecting them to take it. I honestly can't really see a way they would lose against Unicorns, Giants, or ROCCAT. They are for sure the second best team in Europe.

Assuming Origen then qualifies, how would you characterize the playstyle of the three teams you just predicted will go to the World Championship?

Different styles, honestly. H2K has always been a very map-focused team. A lot of focus on early lane swaps to gain an advantage. That's what we have seen across the split, but it's also been a weakness for them. It almost became too predictable, what they were playing for, and when lane swap meta kept adapting and changing, they didn't follow. They stuck to what worked for them from the start. That's why they fell into a bit of a slump. They suddenly couldn't get the same leads in lane swaps.

H2K as a team — you don't look at them and say "star player, star player, star player." You look at them as a unit and say, "Okay, their macro-level strategy should be enough to get them through early game, and it should be enough to snowball, but I think some of the other teams have figured them out, and going into Worlds, they definitely need to improve on that part, otherwise they will be a fairly weak link, I think, even though they're the second seed from Europe right now.

Origen, I mean we just saw them right here. It's always a triple threat. sOAZ is not the big tank player up in the top lane. We get a lot of focus on individual ability packed up with great synergy. I find Amazing and Mithy to be the jungler and support with the best synergy together. I think, if they have an impact in the early game, Origen tends to do really well.

It's funny, because when you watch Origen play, they never win the laning phase in the way you expect. It's always setting up dives 2v3 or 3v1 or whatever with Amazing and Mithy coming together. It's very, very effective for them. I also think as a team, they have that surprise factor somewhat. They can be that team that pulls out something new and tricky and uses that to win a game.

In terms of playstyle specifically, triple threat into very, very good roaming, but a clear weakness when it comes to predicting what the next play will be or setting up for it [Interviewer's Note: Deficio later clarified he meant specifically in relation to setting up for Barons and dragons]. I think that the vision control of Origen is not at the level it should be. I think that that's one reason Fnatic won today. When it comes to setting up for Baron or being in advance of dragons, and so on, Origen struggle. It made it harder for them to take objectives.

Fnatic, the last ones. Fnatic's playstyle is changing, honestly. I like to look at Fnatic as the team in Europe that has perfected the low risk, high reward style. You will rarely see Fnatic go for a play where you feel like, "Oh, that's a 50/50." They will always try to set up, in advance, "Okay, how do we make sure this is like a 70/30?" Or "What is the worst that can happen if we lose and we die in this tower dive here. Can they take a dragon, can they take a tower — whatever — how do you set up the minion waves beforehand? How do you get the vision control?"

Timing, cooldowns is something they do really well, especially YellOwStaR. He did that when he was an AD carry as well. He was sitting there last hitting and typing down the timing of the cooldowns. They're very good at finding scraps here and saying "Okay, is this a high risk, high reward, and how do we change it? Do we force a Teleport or force a Flash or something? Do we spot the jungler somewhere with pink wards? Now it's a low risk, high reward," and then they go for it. That's really been the clear thing for Fnatic as a team, though we keep seeing them change stylistically.

When it comes to compositions, suddenly they run full late game. Then, they run a ton of engage like they did in the last game vs Origen. You know, YellOwStaR on Annie, which is very midgame focused. Then they run protect Rekkles. Then they run "Hey, Huni's playing Riven, let's feed him with Twisted Fate and Rek'Sai," and they're showing a lot of different things, which is very good. They're showing they can play almost all of them. It's hard to give Fnatic a clearcut style, that's why I say it's more being able to calculate when risk is lowest.

Going into the World Championship, what chances do you give these teams to do well?

Origen surprised me today, which means that, if they qualify for Worlds, I won't count them out of Groups instantly. I don't think they'll be favorites to get out of Groups with third seed. I think H2K will struggle. I think Origen with a good group can make it out. They have shown potential, and they have more time to improve. They have veterans which have been to Worlds before and are strong mentally, and Niels has shown that he doesn't care. He can play on the big stage. He can be the carry.

Fnatic—very high expectations. As long as they dodge a group where EDG are there, and SKT lose to KT in a final, and they show up. Then it will be difficult, but if they can dodge around the biggest teams, they should make it out of Groups. I'm expecting first place for them out of Groups as well.

With a good draw, they can make it past the Quarterfinals as well and make Top 4. That's my expectation for Fnatic, but there are enough great teams in the world that I wouldn't be surprised to see Fnatic face up against an EDG in the Quarterfinal and lose that. Should be even, though, should be fairly close.

Reflecting on the split, what was the most exciting moment in the EU LCS for you?

Most exciting moments: Origen coming in at the start of the split was fantastic to watch. Okay, this team stomped through the Challenger Scene, but did they have any competition? Are they really that good, or is it just weaker teams that they're facing? They came in, and after three weeks they just shut us up completely. They destroyed every single game. It was such a powerful performance from them. That was a big eye-opener.

At the same time, I want to say, the evolution of basically the top three teams — H2K, Origen, and Fnatic together, compared to the rest of the League. We just saw a massive gap between the top three and everyone else. It just showed to me how much better these teams were at adapting and improving with changes, being it champions, being it playstyles, whatever, and we just had this clearcut top three. This made some of the games a little bit boring.

Fair to say when Fnatic faced Giants, when we didn't expect too much from Giants coming in, but they made our top games really exciting to follow and see who could match up against Fnatic every time. It was always a battle of "Who can take down Fnatic?" In the very end, Origen got two games, but didn't manage to pull it off.

For my last question, which non-European team are you most excited about seeing at the World Championship?

Oh LGD, 100%. I'm a massive imp fanboy. I love GODV, and I hate GODV at the same time. That guy has the ability to challenge the best mid laner in the World, but I rarely feel like he's consistent enough to do it. We've seen the fantastic GODV, we've seen the Oh-god-what-are-you-doing GODV. LGD for sure is my team to watch.

I do also find QG very fun. I've become a big LPL fan. I enjoyed the Playoffs. I was making sure I could watch the end of the LPL Final before ours started even though they were so close to each other. I'm happy LGD won, but I think QG as well can definitely surprise people at Worlds.

Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for theScore eSports. You can follow her on Twitter.