League of Legends: LEC Summer Playoffs Preview: Splyce vs. Rogue
European League of Legends has entered it’s final stage of 2019 as the LEC Playoffs kick off this weekend! EU’s top six teams will battle it out over the next three weeks for a chance to lift the LEC trophy in Athens!
The LEC Summer Split regular season has finally concluded after nine weeks consisting of 90 games and 1 crucial tiebreaker. The top six European League of Legends teams have been decided and they will now battle it out over the next two weeks to decide who will participate in the Summer finals in Athens.
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Round 1 pitches the 3rd-6th best teams against each other, starting with 3rd place Splyce and 5th place Rogue on Friday. Splyce challenged the top two teams – G2 Esports and Fnatic – throughout the regular season and were marginally pipped to the first round bye in Week 9, whereas Rogue clinched a spot in playoffs on the final day of games thanks to favourable results from SK Gaming and Team Vitality.
When the two face off in Friday’s match-up, Splyce will undoubtedly be the clear favourite to win the series. But with so much on the line, anything can happen in the LEC playoffs in the coming weeks. Here’s our preview of the first playoff round match.
Splyce: Late Game Kings
The LEC’s third best roster have been a breath of fresh air all through the Summer Split regular season as they’ve finally refined their late game play style that they have become infamous for in Europe. Splyce’s 35:53 average game time is a massive 2 minutes longer than any other team in the league, as well as being the fourth longest average game time of any competitive team in 2019 Summer (behind Kaos Latin Gamers, Furious Gaming, and Movistar Riders).
In a meta revolving around early aggression, mid game skirmishes, and 1-2 item power spike, Splyce have been a revelation to the European scene. LEC viewers are often treated to sub 20-minute games from their reigning champions G2 Esports as they completely dismantle teams after the 10-minute mark, but Splyce opt to conclude their business in the later stages of the game.
How do they do it? Through intelligent early game planning and meticulous focus on key objectives, particularly Baron Nashor. Splyce offer no avenue to shut them down in the early game as Xerxe controls the jungle and ensures his laners aren’t overrun in 1v2 or 2v3 situations. From there, Splyce build a small gold lead and dictate the game state through vision control and mid lane priority.
The crux of Splyce’s game plan arrives at the same time as the big purple worm in the top river. Whether it’s through denying vision or forcing a team fight, Splyce will destroy their opponents around a major objective at 25 minutes. Humanoid and Kobbe’s excellent DPS, as well as strong engage options from Xerxe and Norskeren, are joined by Vizicsacsi’s ability to flank or add key ultimates to create an unstoppable team fight machine.
While there’s no doubt that this team’s late game decision making is by far the best in the LEC, it is the unbreakable wall they set up in the early game that makes them so impressive to many, and that all stems through one man in the jungle.
One to Watch: Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir
By no means are Splyce a one-man team; their incredible showing so far in 2019 boils down to a team effort, with every member operating as an integral part of the roster on the Rift. That being said, if you were to survey the LEC audience and ask who the most important member of the line-up has been in the Summer Split, the overwhelming majority would choose Xerxe, and rightly so.
Succeeding in the late game means making it to the late game, and that wouldn’t be possible without a strong laning phase, preventing any attempt at a snowball from the enemy team. While Splyce’s laners undoubtedly play a huge part in this aspect of their game, a lot of the onus is on the Splyce jungler to track his opposite number, set up counter-ganks, and guide his team into the mid game unscathed.
Xerxe is on the shortlist for LEC Summer Split MVP thanks to his incredible work to help place Splyce firmly in the top three in the regular season. The Romanian jungler is often praised by LEC casters and analysts for his exceptional early game, manipulating vision, pathing intelligently, and crafting out opportunities to build a gold lead for his team.
While your Broxahs, Tricks, and Selfmades are renowned for pushing an advantage by aggressively ganking in the early game and stacking up kill after kill for their laners, Xerxe opts to do his work more subtly, and may only find one or two ganks in the first ten minutes of the game. Finishing third so comfortably is an incredible achievement for Splyce, but if they’re to triumph in the playoffs and beyond in 2019, Xerxe will have to continue his excellent displays shown throughout the Summer Split so far.