League of Legends LEC playoff preview: is there a chance for Schalke?
By Josh Tyler
Prediction
Fnatic have advantages in just about every lane other than the bot lane, but none of these advantages are insurmountable. Odoamne can continue his torrid playoff pace to take down Bwipo, Trick isn’t too far off the pace set by Broxah, Abbedagge and Nemesis are both rookies, and Rekkles can never be counted out.
In terms of styles, both teams are among the best when it comes to early game advantages, but Oracles Elixir has Fnatic rated a bit higher. One big concern for Schalke is the fact that they averaged a 110 gold deficit at 15 minutes, while Fnatic as a team averaged over an 800 gold advantage.
In the playoffs Fnatic continued to be a strong team in the early game, but Schalke fell off massively. If this trend continues Fnatic can look to get out to massive leads early.
Even if they don’t, however, the late game should also be favored for Fnatic. They were the best late game team by Oracles Elixir’s calculations, ahead of even G2 (although G2 hardly ever got to late game since they won so quickly).
There is one caveat, being that Schalke was also a very strong late game team during the regular split and during the postseason they arguably got even better. If the games go late, it will be more of a chess match than the ARAM fiestas us NA fans are used to seeing.
Bringing all of this together, I don’t see a realistic scenario where Fnatic doesn’t win. I think Schalke can take a game off them, maybe two, but I think it’s Fnatic all the way. I’m predicting a 3-1 series victory for Fnatic.
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