The final week of the 2016 EU LCS Summer regular season ended in a fashion that I did not expect at the start of the split, including but not limited to: Giants and Splyce's Top 3 finish, Fnatic’s last minute plummet, and H2K’s FORG1VEN-fueled surge. As the game is expected to drastically change in the playoffs for the major region that loves lane swaps, trying to determine who the best teams are becomes even more of a challenge.

Since my pre-split predictions went so well, it seemed only reasonable to rank the final Top 6 teams, considering both their play in the regular season and how these teams will respond to major Patch 6.15 lane swap changes. Unicorns of Love, Fnatic, H2K-Gaming, Giants Gaming, Splyce, and G2 Esports have all played well to earn their placements, but a lot of variables make the current ranking less than straight-forward.

6. Fnatic

Regular season finish: 5th

Lane swap change: Nerfed harder than Irelia in 2011

Historical X-Factor: Practically divine

It might seem blasphemous to rank Fnatic in the bottom given their history of not just dominating in playoffs, but last split of providing a surprise last minute run that some suggested pitted them as the second strongest team in the league, even if they only finished third. One knows Fnatic’s players are talented, even if recent results have appeared abysmal.

Two factors in particular work strongly against Fnatic. Statistically speaking, Fnatic have the largest difference in early game performance in and out or lane swaps, averaging an extra 1,000 gold lead over their opponents at ten minutes relative to standard lanes. They also average an experience disadvantage as a team in standard lane games.

Part of these numbers come from Noh “Gamsu” Yeongjin, who had a tendency to over-extend and suffer in standard lanes, but in general Fnatic’s top lane has been a strange revolving door. What seemed like a step in the correct direction with Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek ended abruptly when the team substituted Jorge “Werlyb” Casanovas Moreno-Torres into the roster halfway through their series against ROCCAT, starting them on their loss streak. Fnatic’s constant top lane fidgeting has made the lineup look progressively worse, which is something lane swaps could theoretically help them hide.

Fnatic as a team outside the top lane benefit a lot from lane swaps. Lane swaps result in less jungle interference in lane, and Lee “Spirit” Dayoon is much more likely to farm through the early game. Martin “Rekkles” Larsson and Fabien “Febiven” Diepstraten exert minimal lane pressure, and this combination makes them incredibly vulnerable early. Reverting to prioritizing more early aggressive picks like Lee Sin and Elise could make Fnatic a stronger early game team, but this hasn’t been something they’ve been able to execute consistently.

It’s difficult to account for “Yes, but Fnatic always come through!” when there’s no evidence they will in this case. Until further notice, they’re the worst team in the playoffs.

5. Unicorns of Love

Regular season finish: 6th

Lane swap change: Like being able to first-pick Sivir twice

Historical X-Factor: As with everything else Unicorns of Love, 50/50

The team that has the most to gain from the Patch 6.15 lane swap changes is the Unicorns of Love. They average as much as an extra 310 more gold over their opponents at six minutes in standard lane scenarios, and in their play, one can observe their tendency to group in a lane early and try to force a lead in a skirmish. Theoretically speaking, this can allow them to get the drop on the bottom lane and grab the first turret and the snowball gold earlier than their opposition.

Unfortunately, outside this small boon, the Unicorns have a very exploitable playstyle. They thrive in surprise attack scenarios, but by now many teams that have time to prepare for them specifically can expect their offense and prepare accordingly. Kang “Move” Minsu ganks mid aggressively, and Unicorns benefit greatly from the pressure Tamas “Vizicsacsi” Kiss can exert in 1v1s. At times, the team will even pull their bottom lane to roam in favor of obtaining solo lane advantages.

Strangely, Unicorns matchup very well against their quarterfinals opponents, Giants. Giants don’t react particularly well to group assaults on their mid lane as they rely on Na “NighT” Gunwoo to get ahead and hold for jungle invades. Yet Giants have fallen for Unicorns’ tricks before, and this time they’ll come more prepared.

4. Giants Gaming

Regular season finish: 3rd

Lane swap change: One door closes, another opens

Historical X-Factor: N/A

Statistically speaking, as a team Giants get slightly greater leads on average in lane swap scenarios, but 77 experience and 50 gold at six minutes in lane swap over standard lane scenarios are offset. Lennart “SmittyJ” Warkus averages a modest lead in standard lanes, providing NighT some relief as the team’s focal point. Giants’ main mechanism of jungle invades with their mid pushing out will fair better in standard lane scenarios where junglers have more influence.

The bottom lane, however, is the elephant in the room. Teams I ranked Top 3 all have really strong high pressure duo lanes that can milk a lead and create early advantages around dragon or when shooting for the first turret. Son “S0NSTAR” Seungik and Morgan “Hustlin” Granberg are happy to uproot and assist their solo lanes with much-needed utility, but it’s hard to decide how a focus on standard lanes will change the bottom lane meta. They don’t seem as versatile as their counterparts in H2K, Splyce, or G2.

A lower ranking for Giants isn’t all on their bottom lane. Not as much credit is attributed to Nubar “Maxlore” Sarafian when discussing the main carries of Giants. While NighT carries most of the weight in their jungle-mid relationship, Maxlore is adept at identifying a quadrant of the enemy jungle to control, and instances where Giants get ahead early occur because Giants are able to establish control. Otherwise, NighT becomes a much easier target with over-extensions and falls back on scaling champions for comebacks. If Giants can get jungle control, they’ll demolish Unicorns in the first round.

3. H2K-Gaming

Regular season finish: 4th

Lane swap change: On one hand, pr0lly, on the other — FORG1VEN

Historical X-Factor: The final season of Heroes

H2K-Gaming’s Head Coach, Neil "pr0lly" Hammad, is probably the voice most responsible for the lane swap mania that took over the EU LCS, but ironically, removing it stands to partially benefit H2K by compensating for one of their largest weaknesses: strategic stagnation. In playoffs, H2K have tunneled onto a type of lane swap or strategic play, and when other teams prepare for them, they don’t appear to adapt. Resetting the meta means everyone starts over, and since H2K often figure out how to get macro play advantages before other teams, some of their old weaknesses won’t come up, and this could truly be the playoffs where they finally place higher than third.

Still, H2K are the lane swap team, and lane swaps have aided them to cover some of Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski’s indecision, as there is less pressure on him to make early plays in lane swaps. Yet when he does pick a lane to camp, H2K can snowball out of control. This is something H2K will need to look to open up if they want to keep World Championship attendance hopes alive.

Konstantinos “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou makes H2K incredibly difficult to predict. Some may characterize FORG1VEN as a ticking time bomb given his past strife with the team. His addition will always give his teams an initial boost, but if he did cause internal drama as we’ve been lead to believe, one can expect that eventually old wounds will re-open.

But with FORG1VEN on the squad in a meta that benefits him because of a 2v2 bottom lane focus, H2K’s theoretical ceiling also grows. H2K’s history of strong drafts also makes it likely that the team can get preferential matchups and use their skill peaks well, giving Yoo “Ryu” Sangook more opportunity to roam.

Aleš “Freeze” Kněžínek was side-lined, but with Tweets circulating, it becomes increasingly likely he returns for at least part of playoffs. This creates a very different dynamic. Outside, potentially, comfort it’s hard to say that putting Freeze back into the lineup will benefit H2K at this stage. With FORG1VEN, H2K’s prospects swing between losing quarters to winning the entire split. With Freeze, they’re more likely to advance to semifinals, but their chances of heading to Worlds feel reduced with less lane pressure. Either way, it's been left very open-ended.

2. Splyce

Regular season finish: 2nd

Lane swap change: Like a second helping of dessert

Historical X-Factor: N/A

I agonized extensively over whether or not Splyce or G2 Esports should be considered the best team in the EU LCS. G2 have a higher ceiling, but Splyce have, with the exception of the final Unicorns of Love series, been more consistent. Both teams have powerful talent bases, but G2 also have more experienced voices in the bottom lane and four players who have attended an international event. The removal of lane swaps opening up Kim “Trick” Gangyun and allowing Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen and Alfonso “mithy” Aguirre Rodriguez to demonstrate how lethal they can be should cement G2’s status.

Perhaps by a much smaller margin than one might expect. In the top lane, Martin “Wunder” Hansen has a very clear advantage in standard lanes, averaging a 6.1 CS advantage at 10 minutes to Ki “Expect” Daehan’s -10.6 in standard lanes (Note: Kikis also accounts for part of this average because of his time on G2 early in the season). Trick has also spent more of his time farming and ganking toward the top laner's side of the map since Expect joined the team. Part of this is likely because Expect has needed more help to get through laning phase. This makes it harder to take advantage of the strength of G2’s bottom and mid lane.

Still, both Splyce and G2 stand to benefit slightly from standard lanes with strong players on each team and occasional lane swap game fumbles. One mark against Splyce is how well they maneuver around open match situations created later in the game with turrets destroyed early on. Their ability to control waves in a 1-3-1 won’t be as reliable, especially if teams begin to simply group and flank around their three players in the mid lane. This can partially be compensated for after the turret defense discrepancy wears off. Splyce will also not be able to pick Kassadin as much with more proactive junglers, but Chres “Sencux” Laursen has a large enough pool that I expect this adaptation to be painless.

The biggest point in Splyce’s favor is still their consistency. It’s hard to root against them when they seem to adapt to many different situations well and are the best team in the league at closing on a lead. It’s just that the massive patch change should allow G2 to abuse more of their strengths.

1. G2 Esports

Regular season finish: 1st

Lane swap change: Akin to home field advantage

Historical X-Factor: It's safe to assume they won't be vacationing beforehand

How Chinese are G2 Esports? With very eerie similarities in style and play to leading Chinese team EDward Gaming, as well as speculation that G2 don’t take regular season games as seriously with some leans toward experimentation, it is somewhat of a gamble to call G2 the best team in Europe when Splyce have been looking so good so consistently.

But G2 are good, even assuming that they don’t experiment and their losses reflect problems that will continue to appear in playoffs. Trick’s ability to command the jungle and spearhead the team as well as mithy’s raw play-making ability make G2 truly terrifying. Fill in Zven and Luka “PerkZ” Perkovic as the squad’s primary carries, and there’s no reason G2 shouldn’t take over a meta that emphasizes lane matchups and high risk-high reward strategy.

My biggest fears for G2 come out in their Teleport plays. It still feels like Expect gets to fights too early and isn’t in sync with the rest of the team. They don’t seem as efficient as they did last split, relying on more “hero plays” from their carries to win fights. There are moments of G2’s play that just don’t feel tight, and this playoffs should truly test their ability to come together perfectly. For now, I trust G2 to become Europe’s second ever two-time LCS champion.

​Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for theScore esports and avid follower of the EU LCS. You can follow her on Twitter.