The debut game of the brand-new European League of Legends league, the LEC, started off today in turmoil as latency issues forced a remake between SK Gaming and Fnatic. The big issue on top of all of the pauses and eventual remake was that the game had reached its mid-game state, and SK Gaming already amassed a sizable lead over Fnatic.
Luckily for SK and their fans, they were able to defeat Fnatic the second time around, too. If they had lost to Fnatic after basically having beat them once before, there would have been one giant asterisk on the results. If, for any reason, those two teams would have found themselves only one game away in the standings later this split, that first game would have always been up for debate.
This time around, Fnatic knew what to look for in SK’s strategy. Why? Well, because they had just been devoured by it about 30 minutes before. That being said, this game was much, much closer, and there were big moments that Fnatic seized, which made them look like they may actually walk away with the remade game.
The Achilles’ heel that proved to be Fnatic’s downfall in the end, though, was the bot lane. More specifically, it was support Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov, who locked in his famous Pyke, with which he held a 9-1 overall record before this game. This put a massive target on his head, though, and SK played with one goal in mind—bring down Hylissang.
Gank, after gank, after gank, after gank were aimed at the bot lane by SK’s jungle and mid laner. Hylissang gave up so many deaths that even when he landed some big kills with his ultimate, he was too far behind, and SK’s gold lead had grown despite Fnatic taking some decent steps to combat it.
SK eventually pressed the gas, gunned for the big objectives, and ran down mid. Fnatic couldn’t keep up, and the game finally ended.
