The second round of playoffs was not what anyone would have expected. Coming into round two, Fnatic were looking like the favorites in their match against Splyce. Although they did pick up the win, their performance was far from what was expected of them.
While G2 came in this round as the underdogs against Orige -, a perception that was based on the team’s poor performances in the second half of the regular split -, they managed to sweep this best-of-five with a 0-3.
Let’s take a closer look at these matches.
FNATIC VS. SPLYCE
This best-of-five was quite a different story for Fnatic compared to their match against Team Vitality in round one. To the surprise of many, Fnatic didn’t quite dominate over Splyce, who managed to have the upper hand in the early game in games one, two and three, as well as pick up a win against Fnatic in game two.
While Fnatic did manage to salvage the series and secure their ticket to round three, there are multiple points of criticism on how Fnatic navigated this best-of-five. Overconfidence seemed like it could be Fnatic’s downfall – overextending, overchasing and hard-diving Splyce based on questionable decision-making were some crucially dark spots in Fnatic’s performance.
Throughout this split, Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov has been criticized for putting himself in precarious situations, getting caught off position, overextending or being overaggressive. Unfortunately, in this series Hilyssang did not silence his critics: his mispositioning and overaggression cost Fnatic multiple fights and control over Splyce.
On the other hand, Splyce did an amazing job standing up to Fnatic with Marek “Humanoid” Brázda and Kasper “Kobbe” Kobberup truly popping off! However, despite having the upper hand in multiple games during this series, they did not manage to close out the games they needed to move on to the next round. What’s more, their draft in game four with Kobbe on Veigar, was beyond questionable and did not generate any kind of advantage for their composition.
G2 ESPORTS VS. ORIGEN
The first game of this series was quite an intense matchup that felt like it was part of a finals best-of-five! Game one was a significantly long, back-and-forth game where Origen seemed like they were totally in control with impressively clean and methodical gameplay. However, Origen did look a bit hesitant to pull the trigger for a game-ending push, leaving crucial openings to G2 to steal away the victory.
The following two games were quite a different story with G2 picking up first blood with a level one invade in both games one and two and establishing their dominance early on. In the second game, Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski was definitely pivotal for G2’s victory with clutch map presence and despite Origen putting up a decent fight and gold being fairly even for the majority of the game, G2 cracked open the game in mid-to-late and took down Origen.
By the third game, Origen’s clean and methodical gameplay looked like it had deteriorated significantly and G2 were easily capitalizing on even the smallest of the mistakes Origen made. In this game, G2 simply outclassed their opponents.
WHAT’S COMING NEXT
In round three, Origen gets a second chance to secure a ticket for the finals as they play against Fnatic.
Despite Origen not being able to pick up a win against G2, their clean and methodical style seems superior to the reckless, overconfident gameplay Fnatic exhibit in their match against Splyce.
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Featured image via LoL Esports.