The LEC went through some major format changes ahead of the 2023 season and KOI’s Emil “Larssen” Larsson praised them recently.
The mid laner explained in an interview with Esports.GG from March 14 that in his eyes, the new format is much more exciting due to how short the splits are. With each of them separated into three different stages, every game has more value and teams really do need to put up their best efforts.
“I think the current format is superior in a lot of ways,” Larssen said. “The first few weeks [are] already hyped now because there is a possibility of teams [that] can be knocked out already.”
And it’s hard to disagree with that point. Fnatic and Excel Esports are perfect examples of strong teams on paper that got knocked out early in the best-of-ones competition. During the 2023 LEC Winter Split, both teams failed to advance to the group stage after they finished ninth and 10th in the standings.
It puts extra pressure on the participating teams, and some of them can already feel it. Fnatic and Team Heretics went 0-3 in the first week of the 2023 LEC Spring Split and need to quickly fix their issues if they don’t want to finish their spring season early.
Related: Perkz breaks down one crucial mistake Fnatic made after 2023 LEC Winter Season
Larssen does have one complaint, though. He pointed out that due to the stages being so short, there are no finals of each split in the huge venues, which results in significantly lower hype around them. But besides that, “it’s a very nice format,” he said.
KOI and Larssen also have a few mistakes to fix ahead of their next weekend since they went 1-2 in the first week of the Spring Split after losing to Astralis and MAD Lions. On Saturday, March 18, they will go up against the LEC Winter Split champions, G2 Esports.
