G2 Esports has confirmed its role as favourite for the LEC Finals. After the Winter Split, the Berlin eSports team also secured the Summer Split in front of their home crowd.
It should have been clear to the LEC viewers in advance that G2 would once again be one of the top favourites for the title in the Summer Split of the LEC. Nevertheless, the Berlin-based organisation impressed with the ease with which it clinched its second split title of the season. There was only one defeat after the regular season. No more were to follow.
Only Excel makes it exciting
In the group phase, the eventual champion prevailed with two victories. The two best-of-three matches against KOI and Team BDS each only went two rounds before the only real stalemate came in the upper bracket final. Excel Esports had a spectacular battle with G2 that went the full distance of the best-of-five. In the end, however, the fourth-placed team of the Spring Split kept its cool and secured a place in the Grand Final.
This was immediately followed by a rematch against Excel, who had kept their title chance alive against Fnatic in the lower bracket final. However, the final match for the trophy and 40,000 euros in prize money was far from the excitement of the preliminary round. G2 started the third sweep of the final round and swept Excel from the field with a 3:0 victory. The second split title after winning the winter edition was perfect.
Easeful success before the finals
For G2 quite a liberating outcome, as Finals MVP Martin ‘Yike’ Sundelin explained via Twitter, “So happy to have won this after disappointing Spring Split and MSI performances.” And Performance Coach Ismael Pedraza also attested to the split triumph’s overriding significance: “This trophy doesn’t feel good because of the trophy itself, but because of the processes, adjustments and systems we adapted during the split.”
With the success, however, G2 has not only freed itself, but underpinned a favourite role for the upcoming LEC Finals. At the final event of the LEC season, a total of €160,000 in prize money and three fixed places for the Worlds are at stake in Montpellier. Whether G2 can once again live up to their status as title contenders will become clear from 19 August, when the double split champion starts the finals against BDS.
