League of Legends: LCL 2019 Summer Split Championship preview

We get closer to the League of Legends World Championship with the conclusion of another league’s final split. Who will win the LCL title?

It’s a battle for the chance to represent Russia at the World Championship, with two familiar faces squaring off. Tomorrow, the Unicorns of Love (UOL) will do battle on the rift against spring playoff winners and 2019 MSI representative for the LCL, Vega Squadron.

Yes, this is the return of the Unicorns of Love to the professional scene. After being rejected for a franchise slot in the LEC for 2019, they took the spring off, before acquiring the spot of Team Just in the LCL.

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They seem at home in the LCL and wasted no time besting a lot of the competition. Ultimately, they placed second in the Summer Open Cup after failing to Gambit Gaming in the final 3-1.

They then finished the Summer Split tied with Gambit for the best record at 12-2. After splitting the season series, they played a tiebreaker game that went to Gambit. This gave the UOL the second seed for the summer playoffs.

UOL opened their summer playoff run with a matchup with Elements Pro Gaming in the semi-finals. UOL made short work of Elements in a 3-0 sweep.

With many of their original roster from 2018 LEC leaving, the Unicorns made some interesting roster moves for 2019. They signed three players off Vega Squadron after they lost in the play-ins at 2019 MSI. These players were top laner Vladislav “BOSS” Fomin, Kirill “AHaHaCiK” Skvortsov, the jungler and middle laner Lev “Nomanz” Yakshin. They then added to this core with a bottom lane duo of Nihat “Innaxe” Dzhelal Aliev, formerly of Excel and Edward “Edward” Abgaryan a veteran support player in both Europe and the LCL.

The signings seem to be paying for for UOL. They went 2-0 against Vega head to head during the season, winning in week one and week three.

Three UOL players placed highly in the MVP standings with AHaHaCiK and Nomanz taking four individual MVP awards. Boss received three MVP rankings as well.

UOL has the firepower and head-to-head record going in their favor. They should be glad to have Vega Squadron and not Gambit as their finals opponent as they seem to be the easier of the two teams to beat. It’s just about finishing the run and making this Cinderella story end with a spot at worlds.

Then we have the defending LCL Spring Split champion Vega Squadron, who finished in the third seed again after doing so in the Spring Split. Yet it proved to not be much of an issue as they defeated Gambit and then Elements by a combined 6-1 score to take the Spring Split title. They earned a berth at 2019 MSI.

There they went 5-1 to finish in first in Group B during play ins. Then they dropped a series 3-1 to the Flash Wolves in the play-ins knockout round. Then with one more chance to qualify for the main event, they dropped a 3-2 decision to Phong Vu Buffalo and failed to make it to the group stage. However, it might be the team remembered for running mages in the bottom lane more often than not.

After MSI, Vega hit a snag as three of their players left for UOL. They were able to resign top laner Rafael Adl “Doxy” Zarabi and bottom lane carry Ilya “Gadget” Makavchuk from the MSI roster. Vega then extended the contract of support player Aleksandr “SaNTaS” Lifashin. Jungler Ilya “Kreox” Grom and middle lane player Anton “DiscotEkka” Shestakov joined to finish out the roster.
The revamped Vega Squadron made it to the semi-finals of the 2019 LCL Summer Open Cup before bowing out to Gambit 3-0, the eventual winner of the event to finish third/fourth.

Then during the Summer Spilt, they finished at 10-4 in that same third-place spot. This earned them a matchup with Gambit. Vega took the series 3-2 to beat the number one seeded team and earn the spot in the finals.

This team has its fair share of MVP candidates as well. Doxy and Gadget tied with four individual awards of their own. Gadget was also named MVP three more times during the playoffs.
I don’t think fight or talent is lacking in this so-called minor region. With both teams fighting to earn their first world championship spot they should be going all out.

I just hope to see some Karthus bottom lane from Gadget and a close series worthy of a Summer Finals as my expectations for this final series.

My Prediction is a UOL victory in four games. Having a roster filled with split winners already should give them the edge over a Vega Squadron that had to built a new roster.

Even with two Spring Split winners returning to Vega I don’t feel they have a real advantage over UOL. I also wouldn’t count out having the veteran presence of Edward, who has been to worlds before and should know how to a team back to the world tournament.

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UOL and Vega Squadron hit the rift to play the finals on September 15, 2019.

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