Coming from Week 1, where we saw G2 Esports take their place at the top, as the usual leader of the group, the other teams showed us what the shuffle of players from team to team, the new players and the new synergies meant for the championship.
Week 2 featured the teams proving to us what makes them a team, and what makes them a worthy opponent for the top spots on the leader board. We got to see more from each team and how they think.
G2 played against Vitality (VIT) for a W. Gold difference was 11.1k in favor of G2, kill count was 15-1, G2 took 8 towers compared to Vitality taking 1 tower, and 3 Dragons were snagged by G2 while Vitality didn’t get any.
G2 completely stomped Vitality in the game looking at the numbers alone. The only player who got a kill on Vitality was Lucas “Cabochard” Simon-Meslet.
First Blood went to Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski using Flash and a Cacoon to stun Lucas “Saken” Fayard after he was baited into the jungle. The only Vitality kill happened soon after since Martin “Wunder” Hansen played Soraka in the top lane. Vitality attempted to shut his utility down early on.
MVP was Luka “PERKZ” Perkovic collecting 7 kills and 7 assists during the game. Considering that PERKZ was playing his signature Lucian in the mid lane can seem like a mistake at first, but since VIT Saken was playing Yasuo, it was easy for him to outplay the enemy midlaner. Even with Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle missing a lot of his Thresh Death Sentences, it did not matter.
Vitality messed up by their own planning. Often it looked liked they wanted to do something but once a player got picked off by G2, it was either support the dying Vitality player or abandon him. In addition, with Rasmus “Caps” Winther chose Aphelios, guaranteeing a high damage output from G2. With strong Crowd Control (CC), G2 handfed PERKZ and dominated the game.
Courtesy of LoL Esports
For Game 2, G2 played against Origen (OG) for another W. Gold difference was 8.2k for G2, kill count was 21-9, G2 destroyed 9 towers and OG took 4, OG got Baron, but G2 got the Dragon Soul.
Everyone was expecting a close game. So Jankos commented how OG was not a threat to them. Again, PERKZ demonstrated why he is the best player in the LEC. Many considered this to be a OG victory at draft, since Barney “Alphari” Morris played Rumble.
PERKZ on LeBlanc: the high burst damage is exactly what he needed for a team of squishy champs like Rakan, Xayah, and Sylas. G2 drafted to deliver kills to PERKZ again. Even Caps played Senna, and her global ultimate, Dawning Shadow, and her Piercing Darkness to provide such strong play-making capability. The match ended with PERKZ at 9-2-9 (kills, deaths, assists).
Erlend “Nukeduck” Holm and Elias “Upset” Lipp had with zero deaths out of the three games they’ve played. That’s exactly why G2 was ferocious in starting fights. OG did have good plays though, as they took advantage of G2’s all-in play-style. Letting G2 members walk to them and outplaying them. We were able to see moments of G2 becoming vulnerable to be collapsed on.
Ending week 2 at #1 with a 4-0 (win/loss) streak, things are looking exactly how they did last year. Looking forward to Week 3, here are some things to consider about G2.
“You can’t die.” – Wunder
Courtesy of @LEC
These words were repeatedly chanted into G2 voice comms against Vitality. If PERKZ is the damage dealer, Wunder’s Soraka is the motivation that gives him strength. Since Soraka has a 55% win rate in the top lane, Riot has already issued a reduction in her stats for patch 10.4 to discourage this. The patch will be live on February 20. Until then, will we keep seeing Wunder harass his top lane opponent and heal his entire team up within moments? Hopefully, yes.
It’s already established that PERKZ is an all-star mid laner and an all-star ADC. We saw in G2 vs VIT last week, if PERKZ plays a marksman champion and isn’t shut off early then G2 has two ADCs. This means that late game strategy for G2 will definitely be a game of ‘keep the ADCs alive’. Expect Wunder, Jankos and Mikyx to pick champs with high utility.
A laughing point in both games was Mikyx’s inability to land his Thresh hooks consistently. It usually didn’t matter because G2 wasn’t making a committed play from those hooks or, they were so committed that they would get the kill regardless. But remember, Mikyx is a phenomenal support player and seeing Death Sentences being thrown but no one being taken to the afterlife is a quite disappointing.
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