Over the past week, European League of Legends players have been dominated by NA pros in the Champions Queue. While many predicted it might translate to the region’s dominance at Worlds 2022, reality proved to be cruel on day one of the event.
Fans witnessed Evil Geniuses taking on Fnatic in the second matchup of the Play-Ins. Unfortunately, it proved to be a rude awakening for the 2022 LCS Spring champions.
From drafting to gameplay, Fnatic outplayed EG on all fronts. They ended the game comfortably before the 30-minute mark.
Many were shocked by EG’s abysmal performance against Fnatic. While their mid-laner Jojopyun looked like a beast in Champions Queue, he failed to show up in this match.
Even EG’s players were disappointed with the way they played. After the loss, EG’s jungler Inspired spoke to Em Dash Esports. “I think we just didn’t execute our draft well. It was pretty cringe how we lost. The blame is on us, rather than Fnatic playing well,” he said.
Losing the bot lane was one of the key reasons why EG failed to make a comeback. “After those first eight minutes of the game, if we don’t really get anything bot, and especially if we die, the game is basically unplayable,” Inspired said.
Inspired believes that it will be hard for the team to advance from the Play-Ins to the Group stage now that EG have lost a crucial game.
“I’m not really thinking about the Group Stage yet. We just lost our game, so we might not even make it through the Play-Ins,” he said. “It’s just one game, but the game was very important because we only play best-of-ones. I’m a bit mad that we lost against Fnatic because I don’t think they’re anything special.”
When it comes to trash-talking about the European region, Inspired is not one to back off. After moving to EG at the end of last year, he held an AMA on League’s subreddit. There, he said said junglers in NA are probably better than EU, pointing to 100 Thieves’ Can “Closer” Çelik.
Still, the loss against Fnatic has made the climb to the Worlds Group stage steeper for EG. Jojopyun, Vulcan, Inspired, Impact, and Kaori need to rework their strategy before going into the second day of the Play-Ins if they want to prove the region’s dominance against others.
