LEC's 2024 Winter Split has reached its end, and the new champions have been crowned and welcomed early to the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational. Read on to see how it happened!
MAD Lions KOI’s journey
MAD Lions KOI came into the 2024 season with a brand new roster. Only Javier "Elyoya" Prades Batalla remained from the 2023 roster that won them the Summer Split title, and got them a place at both the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational and the 2023 Season World Championship. Everyone else on the team, literally from top to bottom, were brand new to the stage and debuting their skills in Berlin for the very first time. MAD Lions held some prestige, for sure, but MAD Lions KOI? I don't think anyone expected them to do so well in what is essentially their first split, and yet, they exceeded all expectations.
Their regular season run was solid. The split kicked off just a couple of days after Patch 14.1 hit, and all of the item and map changes came into effect. There was certainly a period of adjustment for all teams, yet MAD Lions KOI maintained a 5-4 win/loss in the regular season, on par with veteran teams such as Fnatic and SK Gaming, and better than Team Vitality and Team Heretics, who comprised of many well-known and iconic LEC players.
The playoffs started off rough, as MAD Lions KOI was sent into the lower bracket in Round 1 by Fnatic. However, they were able to cleanly defeat both GIANTX and Team Vitality and earn a rematch against Fnatic last weekend for a chance to play Team BDS and advance into the finals. After a rather gruelling five series game, they managed to defeat Fnatic and, against all odds, they beat the nearly-undefeated Team BDS in another five game series on Saturday. Now the only thing standing between this team of four rookies and the championship was G2 Esports.
G2 Esports’ journey
As expected from our defending champions, G2 Esports' journey to the finals was far smoother. They ended first in the Regular Season, with a win/loss ratio of 7-2, having only lost one game to Rogue and one to Team Vitality.
They had two best-of-three series and one best-of-five in the playoffs before securing finals. They clean-swept GIANTX, sending them directly to MAD Lions KOI in the lower bracket, and then defeated Fnatic with a score of 2-1 (funnily enough, also then sending them straight into MDK's claws).
Their biggest challenge would come next - Team BDS. Up until this point, Team BDS has only lost once to Karmine Corp, and once to G2 Esports, both losses happening in best-of-one matches in the regular season. In the playoffs, BDS was undefeated. However, after a disappointing loss in the first game of the series, Team BDS couldn't bounce back, and G2 clean-swept through the Swiss team. If the only other team matching G2's win ratio has lost, could Mad Lions KOI stand any chance?
The Two Teams Clash
MAD Lions KOI took control of the series from the get-go, and their first kills were found in the bot lane. Elyoya Elastic Slingshot themselves under G2's bottom turret, netting himself First Blood and an extra kill for Supa. Overcompensating for their loss, G2 overextended in the bot lane, Mikyx and Hans Sama diving beyond MDK's turret alongside Yike and Caps, but things turned disastrous as more MDK members filed in. In the end, G2 got one, but Fresskowy got three. Fifteen minutes in, MDK held a 4k gold advantage, and the gold gap only grew as each MDK member started to stack kills. By the end, everyone but the support had at least five kills, and G2's fate was sealed by the 30th minute mark.
G2 Esports Pushes Back
In Game 2, it was Caps who secured First Blood four minutes in, as both Yike and Elyoya intervened mid lane. Around the same time, Hans Sama was able to secure a Double Kill bot lane. Fifteen minutes in, it was G2 that held that 4k gold advantage from game one, and it was G2's carries that were starting to stack kills. G2 Esports displayed far more reservedness and respect towards MAD Lions KOI, carefully and cleanly transfering their early lead into mid game, and their mid game into a victory, so that by the end, MDK had only gotten five kills total, and the gold difference was nearly 15k.
The Champions Are Crowned
Once again in Game 3 MAD Lions KOI were able to take the early game lead. Fifteen minutes in, they held a modest 2k gold lead, with Elyoya and Supa doing particularly well on Bel'Veth and Senna respectively. It was BrokenBlade on Kennen that turned the tides for G2 around that time, stunning three people with their ultimate and popping Senna like a balloon. G2 started ramping up, and MDK could not wrestle their previous lead back from the defending champions, who ended the game with a 6-1 Kennen, 9-1 Yike, and 10-1 Varus in spite of an uneventful early game.
Backs against the wall now, MDK needed to win this next game or it was all over for them in the Winter Split. In draft, they were able to secure Varus away from Hans, and Supa was able to, throughout the game, show that he was just as deadly on the Arrow of Retribution. Ten minutes in, Supa had just secured their fourth kill, and fifteen minutes in, they were 7-0. However, this was as much a curse as it was a blessing. Aside from Supa, none of the other MDK members could mount any lead, and the rest of G2 - top, jungle, and mid lane - were quickly gaining traction. In the end, there was little that Varus could do, even with the peeling power of Rell, Taliyah, and Alistar to avoid Nautilus' point-and-click knock-up, Caps' incredible Flash Shurima Shuffles, or any of the other innumerable tools G2 had in their CC box. Once mid game kicked in, G2 found that they could effectively neutralise Supa, and the rest of MDK fell apart like a dry biscuit.
With their third victory of the best-of-five series, G2 Esports had defeated MAD Lions KOI, and earned the title of champions, as well as a ticket straight to the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational and the 2024 LEC Season Finals. G2 Esports is the first team to qualify for MSI, as the LEC is the only region that practises a Winter Split at all. We'll meet the other MSI participants in March and April!
Image sourced from LEC's twitter account.
