Team Vitality and Astralis are still tied for the last playoffs spot while Excel Esports’ chances are growing ever thinner. Oh, and SK went 2-0.
Another LEC week, another Power Ranking. Last week was an interesting one, as SK Gaming won both of their matches, while Schalke 04 went 0-2, and G2 lost the LEC’s El Clásico, AKA their match against Fnatic.
10. FC Schalke 04 (-)
At our number 10 spot is still Schalke 04, who are now at last place in the LEC as well as our list. FC Schalke 04 can’t really seem to find success as they lost their last five matches in the league. After Week Six, the team doesn’t have any chance of making playoffs, which is pretty disappointing if we remember that this season is their last.
The saddest thing is that Schalke has been on the right track in their game plan, putting Sergen “BrokenBlade” Celik on carry champions like Irelia and Lucian. Also, they were the first team to field Irelia, who has seen some success in the Eastern regions. Schalke played her in top and mid, and won neither of those matches, but at least they are trying to shake things up.
9. Excel Esports (-1)
I just don’t believe in Excel Esports, and their results seem to justify my doubts. Even though they have had some good games so far, if they stay on this track, they will have a worse record than in the spring. The team was put together to finally make the playoffs but they had to make changes mid-season, which is never a good sign.
Excel Esports is currently in eighth place. tied with SK Gaming. But while SK went 2-0, Excel lost both their matches. It’s true that Excel had tougher opponents, but this split it seems like almost every opponent is tough, so if they wanted to make playoffs they should’ve expected hard matches. Which they probably did, to be fair.
8. SK Gaming (+1)
SK Gaming finally came in clutch in Week Six. The team which was in last place for most of the split has finally finished a weekend undefeated for the first time. They didn’t have easy opponents as they played Spring Champions MAD Lions and supposed superteam Excel Esports.
After a good early game against the Lions, and thanks to Erik “Treatz” Wessén’s Dr.Mundo, SK secured the mid to late-game, and with that, the victory against MAD Lions. They won just as convincingly against Excel Esports with great showings from Ersin “Blue” Gören on Lucian and Jean “Jezu” Massol on Ziggs. Ironically, Jezu looked the best this split when he didn’t play a marksman.
7. Team Vitality (-)
Team Vitality lost both their matches last week, but they played G2 Esports and MAD Lions, which are two of the strongest teams in the league. The squad is still battling with inconsistency: when one part of the team is doing well, the other is struggling. Or simply put, the whole team is just very hot or very cold.
In the match against MAD Lions, Jus “Crownshot” Marucic and Labros “Labrov” Papoutsakis had great performances while the top side of the team sort of ran it down. Against G2, the bot lane was struggling while Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek went 8/3/4 on Xin Zhao. The only constant of the team last was that Adam “LIDER” Ilyasov played weaker than usual. Still, they are in the run for the remaining playoff spots, but they’ll have to beat out our number six team to qualify.
6.Astralis (-)
Astralis went 0-2, just like Team Vitality, but they still managed to get the position they had last week. The reason for that is Rogue and Fnatic are arguably stronger this split than G2 Esports and MAD Lions, and Astralis played and lost against the former two.
Still, Astralis has to fix a few things if they want to beat Vitality for the last playoff spot, mainly in the bot lane. Hampus “promisq” Mikael Abrahamsson had a really weak performance in both matches, notably going 0/9/4 on Taric against Fnatic. The game against the orange-black team was a steamroll, but the rest of Astralis tried to reduce the damage where they could, unlike promisq. We will see which team makes playoffs, but one thing is for sure: this new rivalry will be interesting to watch!
5. MAD Lions (-2)
MAD Lions are still looking off this split but they are getting better. As Javier “Elyoya” Batalla said in a recent podcast, the team was a bit burnt out after MSI, and in the weeks before they had to play remotely while other teams returned to the Berlin Studio. Nevertheless, they went 2-0 in Week Five.
That wasn’t the case for Week Six, even though the Spring Split Champions returned to the stage as well. While they beat Team Vitality, they lost against SK Gaming, who were in last place until Week Six. While SK had their best performance so far in the split, it’s still no excuse for an MSI-participant team to lose to them.
4. G2 Esports (-)
G2 Esports stayed in fourth place after the last week. They got out of the slump with the help of Avatar Aang himself, but they are still not as dominant as they were in the previous seasons. They beat Team Vitality by a large margin, having a 10 kill and 10k gold advantage by the time the enemy Nexus fell.
Even though they seem more collected than in weeks prior, they lost their second match against Fnatic. Though the match was very close and Martin “Rekkles” Larsson had a really good showing on Vayne, a single minion came in clutch to save Fnatic in the most crucial team fight. It was the biggest “unlucky” moment we’ve ever seen in the LEC.
3. Misfits Gaming (+2)
Misfits are back on track to the top as they are one win away from locking in playoffs. The team could definitely be higher on the list after a 2-0 week, but they only beat two bottom-tier teams and almost lost the match against Excel Esports at that.
Misfits battled Excel for almost 40 minutes before they could beat them. Even though they controlled the midgame, Excel found success in the late game, making things very difficult for the new upcomers of the league. In the end, Vincent “Vetheo” Berrié and his signature Zoe helped his team to victory, as Vetheo went 6/0/6 on the Aspect of Twilight.
2. Rogue (-)
Rogue was the first team to lock in a spot in the Summer Split Playoffs after they beat Schalke 04 and Astralis in Week Six. Steven “Hans sama” Liv and his teammates feel stronger and stronger as they perfect their calm and controlled playstyle.
They stomped FC Schalke 04 on the first day on a match that almost beat the record of the shortest battle of the summer, only taking 11 seconds longer than the current fastest win of Team Vitality over SK Gaming. They also won their second match this split against Astralis, who held on longer than Schalke but got beat in under 30 minutes as well.
1. Fnatic (-)
Coming in at the number one spot for this week’s Power Rankings is Fnatic. They hold onto their first-place while locking into the playoffs alongside Rogue with a stellar 10-3 ratio.
.@FNATIC TAKE DOWN @G2ESPORTS AND LOCK PLAYOFFS! #LEC pic.twitter.com/suyBu8Uohb
— LEC (@LEC) July 17, 2021
They stomped Astralis in their first match, then moved onto the next step of the biggest rivalry in Europe, the match against G2 Esports. The two superteams duked it out for more than 30 minutes, but in a clutch last team fight, Fnatic came out on top. They’ll be sure to meet G2 again in the playoffs, but for now, they can kind of relax in the remaining two weeks.
Week Seven of the LEC Summer Split will begin Friday, July 23 where Misfits Gaming, MAD Lions and G2 Esports will have a chance to lock into playoffs, leaving one spot to the remaining teams!