EU LCS Finals Prediction by Jeremy “Ne0 Jets” Heimann
Fnatic (17-11) vs SK Gaming (18-10)
Season series won 3-1
by SK Gaming
Fnatic is LCS Royalty. Winners of both the Spring and Summer
Playoffs in 2013 and close runners-up at IEM Katowice 2014, Fnatic
started the split going 7-0 and looked like the team to beat. Then they lost eight
in a row and their place among the top contenders was in serious jeopardy. The
team was able to recover and finished strong with a record of 10-3 coming down the stretch. The
team is very experienced in the playoffs save for Rekkles, the boy wonder.
Rekkles, at the age
of 16, was a huge part of Fnatic defeating CLG EU and winning Winter Dreamhack
2012. Rekkles is fearless out on the rift - making plays that are usually setup by his
support Yellowstar. The bottom lane combo has been deadly this season. Former
ADC Yellowstar knows the ins and outs of the role and has great synergy with Rekkles. Mid lane doesn't require much introduction. It is Fnatic's
own Xpeke, famous for his back door Kassadin play. He doesn't run teleport mid
much anymore, but teams still strive or fail based on how the center of the map is going. Xpeke led the whole of EU
LCS in kills this split with 125 total kills. Patch 4.5 hasn’t been so kind to
Xpeke having his most played champion Gragas nerfed hard. Champions I see him
aiming to get in champ select are Leblanc, Nidalee and Orianna.
Top lane Soaz has one of the deeper champion pools and he isn't
afraid of anyone. He does his job time and again. His top lane Lulu came up
huge in the semifinals and he isn't scared to play anything top. He also likes
playing Trundle against tanky tops so whatever Freddy122 comes up with he will
have an answer for. In the jungle is Cyanide. He has a lot of games on Elise
this season. He also plays Lee Sin and Vi. I don’t expect any target bans
thrown his way. He has been a very solid jungler for some time, but he needs to
be a play maker more.
SK Gaming wasn't expected to finish at the top of the spring
season. Many predicted them to be near the bottom of the league. They were also
pushed to their limits during regulations by Supa Hot Crew. N-rated has been on
fire lately in the support role - setting up most of what SK does in lane and
in team fights. SK is team-oriented, living or dying with what the team does
as a whole and not individually. A weakness I could see is in mid lane, Jesiz. Twelve
of his eighteen wins are on three champs: Ziggs, Nidalee and Orianna. He has
tried to learn new champs such as LeBlanc, but has had mixed results when he is
forced off his comfort picks. A strategy could be to ban those three champs and
force him onto something he isn't comfortable with.
Freddy122 has been a beast with the tanky top meta. He has
an impressive five out of five wins on Trundle. Svenskeren has impressive win
rates with Eve, Pantheon and Elise. With the recent Pantheon nerfs, I don’t see
him looking that way. Eve and Elise will be high priority. I don’t think he
would care which one he got as long as it was one of the two. Candypanda’s Vayne
gets banned out a lot, but he has nearly identical win rates on Lucian and Jinx.
He laughs at the Vayne bans because it does not hurt him or his team at all.
Prediction: Fnatic wins a close series 3-2. Experience in the
playoffs will tilt the series.
