2022 LEC Spring Split: Week 5 Day 2 Recap

Europe’s two superteams in Vitality and Fnatic faceoff in a not-so-epic match while Rogue hold yet another L.

BDS vs XL

BDS got to an early lead thanks to Adam’s Jayce solokilling Finn’s Irelia twice in the laning phase, leaving all of us to wonder how the heck this “counterpick” keeps getting its stuff pushed in time and time again. However, despite their early lead, I was reluctant to give BDS the prospective victory, and sure enough, due to over grouping and lack of clear side laning from Adam, Excel were able to make the game a bloody skirmish fest, with Patrik’s Aphelios coming up massive in objective fights to bring XL the win. With their 2-0 week and their franchise ADC player finally playing up to his standards, Excel look to finally push into the playoffs for the first time in their organization’s history.

BlogofLegends MVP: XL Patrik (1)

MAD vs SK

The next game was a largely uninspiring battle between the MAD Lions and SK Gaming, where the 9th place SK handed the reigning champions yet another loss, sweeping them in the double round robin. The game was largely based around MAD Lions not having enough engage in their comp to push their early advantages and letting SK scale into teamfights, where Sertuss’ Akali was a massive difference maker.

BlogofLegends MVP: SK Sertuss (1)

A largely lukewarm rookie playing in his debut split in the LEC, Sertuss put on a quiet virtuoso of a performance, constantly looking for flanks and finding key pickoffs in fights in order to neuter the rookie MAD carries and deliver another win for an otherwise ill-fated SK lineup.

RGE vs MSF

Hey Rogue are a really reliable team. How many times have they finished first in regular season and converted that to a trophy? How many times have they built up the expectations of their fans and delivered on the promise? Zero times. And Rogue walk away with zero wins in week five following an absolute capitulation from Comp, who was leading all bot laners in major statistics, and a monstrous performance out of Neon once again. Malrang’s early game ganking style seems to be getting figured out by LEC teams, and after going 9-0, the ex-Damwon sub jungler found himself becoming more and more irrelevant in his last two games. Rogue’s fredy122 and the rest of their coaching staff will have to find more ways to incorporate the Korean import in their roster that doesn’t always involve cheese ganks, or Rogue will find themselves in stiff competition as the rest of the LEC teams get better and develop more cohesion as the split progresses.

Now I never thought of Neon as a good player and even after his double MVP week, I still have much to see from him. A great SoloQ player turned into a decent professional player, Neon has always been receiving decent hype as if he would one day break out into the upper echelon of European ADCs, and thus far he has not even come close to delivering. He was always a relatively mediocre player in his Schalke days, retaining that level of performance throughout the most of this split. But he has been going ballistic with Jinx for two games in a row now, absolutely playing out his mind and being the primary carry as mid laner Vetheo takes more of a backseat from the limelight. Is this simply a flash in the pan for the Misfits ADC or is this the start of something truly powerful coming to form in the LEC? Only time will tell.

BlogofLegends MVP: MSF Neon (2)

AST vs G2

Astralis really seem to be kicking in high gear as they tussle with G2 in a high-kill 31 minute game, but are eventually outplayed in teamfights that cut their short-lived win streak abruptly early. Targamas continues to impress with his 11th unique champion in 11 games, roaming around the map and creating plays for G2 while stifling promisq’s engages on Leona. Even though Zanzarah got fed on his signature Trundle, he was not able to carry against Braum’s 4-hit stun passive and eventually got picked off which led to a clean G2 closeout.

BlogofLegends MVP: G2 Targamas (2)

FNC vs VIT

The superteams collided once again and the game looked close for the first 15-20 minutes, before Fnatic pulled away with the lead owing to a double carry performance from jungler Razork and superstar Upset. The clean bot lane dive early game gave Fnatic enough of a snowball to overpower Vitality through the mid game, outplaying the superstar roster with better coordinated skirmishing and teamfighting. Razork came up massive on the Viego, solokilling two people on what felt like the same spot in the Vitality blue-side jungle on two different occasions.

BlogofLegends MVP: FNC Razork (1)

Vitality are reeling after a 0-2 week where everybody but Selfmade does not look as advertised –  forget lack of coordination, the superteam simply does not seem to have the individual prowess that was initially expected, especially from Alphari, who might as well be a fly on the wall. The only reason I am not more critical about Vitality is God-Emperor Perkz; the man can look as lackluster as he wants in the regular season but if you’ve been watching League of Legends for the past three to four years, you know what he can become in high pressure playoff situations. But will Selfmade and Playoff Perkz be able to carry the rest of the disappointing team to the promised land or will Vitality look to Summer Split to better their fortunes?

2022 LEC Spring Week 5 MVP

It’s a tossup between G2’s breakout support in Targamas and Misfit’s unlikely superstar in Neon for this week’s award, and honestly, it’s all about what you value more. While I am keen to notice smart setup players, I always place more weight behind the actual damage dealers of the team; with his uncharacteristic laning aggression combined with his adept teamfighting, Neon will walk away with the 2022 LEC Spring Week 5 MVP. I am reluctant to say that the man is now some sort of superstar ADC – I’ve seen too many inconsequential games from him  –  but hey, who knows? Maybe this is the spark Misfits were looking for all along!