EDG were clearly feeling the heat after losing two straight games
EU’s Fnatic turned things around to win the super exciting first game – and took convincing wins in the second and third games, to eliminate China’s EDG from the League of Legends World Championship.
In game one, it was EDG who took the initial lead and got the few early kills.
Support for Chinese side EDG was surprisingly strong in Wembley’s SSE Arena, and it may have filtered through to Fnatic’s early play.
Huni got caught out top as Jarvan and killed, and EDG soon found themselves a good handful of kills ahead.
However, some amazing team fights near baron saw Fnatic claw themselves back into the game, with Huni leading the charge.
EDG did fight back, with Fnatic getting wiped out after dawdling too long near EDG’s final top tower, but it was Fnatic who were in the lead at this point and finished the game off. 1-0 to Fnatic.
In (a later cancelled) game two, EDG secured first blood, but a bug with Reignover’s Q (as Gragas) meant the game was frozen for a while, as Riot tried to fix the technical glitch.
After around half an hour of bad Mexican waves, awkward camera close-ups of the audience and people activating the lights on their smartphones, the organisers decided to replay game two from scratch.
In the replayed game two, this time the picks were slightly different to the cancelled game (Fnatic’s Huni opted for Riven instead of Gangplank, while EDG’s ADC Deft went for Caitlin instead of Mordekaiser). It’s a shame, as EDG was performing well in the cancelled game two, with Deft taking the ghost of the dragon to destroy Fnatic’s first mid tower.
It was Febiven who got fed early on as LeBlanc (you could say he was ‘Fed’iven – groan) , picking up four kills within around ten minutes, and eventually went beyond the seven-kill mark.
EDG couldn’t handle Fnatic’s early stomping, and before long it was 2-0 to the European side.
Onto game three, and it was Huni again performing well, taking the first blood as Riven bot.
At the ten-minute mark Fnatic held a 1k gold advantage over EDG. On the 16-minute mark, a teamfight kicked off mid, with a 2 for 2 trade, as Rekkles (Jinx) picked up a double kill.
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In minute 22, EDG’s Pawn and Koro made a superb double-flank mid, and EDG managed to split Fnatic into two groups, picking them apart to go 7-5 up.
Huni (Riven) did manage to gain a double kill, but Koro (Darius) got a triple-kill.
Fnatic picked up a baron soon after, and some brave play from Yellowstar (Alistar) saw Fnatic pick up two more kills. The match evened out a little at this point, at 8-8.
At the half an hour mark, Fnatic pushed top, taking out two more of EDG’s players.
PawN made a great escape in the jungle soon after, rift-walking and flashing to make a great escape from Fnatic.
At this point, the gold difference was about 9k in Fnatic’s favour, following the baron kill.
At 35-minutes in, Rekkles picked up a triple kill as Jinx, leading Fnatic to take the game – 3-0.
Image source: Riot Flickr
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
