The LEC spring season kicks-off with a three-day weekend to showcase the top European pro teams. MAD Lions smashed the much-hyped Team Vitality roster in the opening match, while the rest of the games saw expected victories for the favorites - though maybe not in the expected fashion.
After a long winter break, Europe’s top League of Legends teams kicked off the 2022 spring season with the first day of a three-day “super weekend”. While fans’ expectations varied greatly, the LEC had often surprised analysts. Would the favorites be able to hold the line or would we see a weekend of upsets?
MAD Lions Roar
The opening game may have been meant to showcase the best team of 2021 against probably the best team of 2022, but it quickly went off the rails for Team Vitality. MAD Lions got two early kills mid off Javier "Elyoya" Prades Batalla’s ganks and this set up the tone of the game. MAD’s jungler went on a tear, showing up everywhere and leading his team to a dominant victory as he demolished Vitality’s lanes one after the other with an amazing 8/1/10 Diana performance.
Solid Start for Rogue
In the next game, MAD’s big 2021 rival Rogue took on SK Gaming. After an even early game, Rogue won an important fight near the drake 18 minutes in, getting three kills and the objective and setting up their AD carry Markos "Comp" Stamkopoulos for success. He and fellow newcomer Kim "Malrang" Geun-seong proved clutch in the mid-game as their team took an early Baron and, after catching their opponents unprepared, pushed in the enemy base for a quick win.
Malrang 100% LEC winrate pic.twitter.com/JyLqFxYikM
— lars (@Larssen00) January 14, 2022
G2 Fend Off Excel Challenge
While our first two games were pretty one-sided after the opening minutes, Excel Esports and G2 Esports scrapped for over forty minutes. For much of that time, the game was very close, but G2 kept finding small advantages. Rasmus "caPs" Borregaard Winther was on point as usual, but the team’s bot lane had a strong performance as well. Excel took the first Baron in the mid-game, but an ace several minutes later put G2 in the lead. It all came to a 50-50 at the Elder Dragon, and Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski’s smite decided the game for his team.
Misfits Defeat Astralis
Astralis took first blood in their fight against Misfits Gaming, but the favorites replied with several of their own, soon getting ahead. However, time and again Astralis managed to get clutch fights and delay the game. The teams traded blows and while Misfits maintained a small lead, it was still anyone’s game to win when they found a pick on Kasper "Kobbe" Kobberup’s fed Jinx and used it to steamroll the Astralis base.
Fnatic Denies BDS Upset
Fnatic was expected to have an easy win in the last game of the day, but that is not how this game started. Instead, Team BDS took three early kills and Adam "Adam" Maanane had a great opening against his old team. However, as the game went on, we got a demonstration why Zdravets "Hylissang" Galabov is considered one of the best supports in Europe. His Rakan turned the game twice, first setting up his team for a clutch fight and a baron 23 minutes in, then helping his team defend their base and counterattack 10 minutes later. With his botlane partner Elias "Upset" Lipp, he led Fnatic to a key victory.
Read More:
- LEC Team Ranking for 2022
- Vitality Confirms 2022 LEC Roster With Three New Top Tier Players
- LEC Dates for 2022 Announced
The LEC continues on Saturday with a match between Rogue and Misfits Gaming. Join us on Discord to discuss what your predictions are