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Ice cool excel Esports defeat Diabolus in UK Masters LoL final

Posted on by Dom Sacco
excel win uk masters spring 2018 1

A cool, calm and collected exceL Esports side won the League of Legends Spring 2018 UK Masters tournament at Insomnia62 today.
They beat Diabolus Esports 3-1 in the grand final, winning three straight games.
Diabolus started with a free first-game win after coming through from the winners’ bracket undefeated, but never seemed to get out of second gear or hit their true potential in the final.
exceL were the more composed side, no doubt bolstered by their time together practicing in exceL’s OMEN gaming house, and showed real togetherness and spirit throughout the finals.

You can see the full group stage info and bracket info for the tournament here.
 

The games

It’s fair to say exceL had the better draft throughout the games, with some interesting picks that Diabolus failed to deal with effectively.
In game one, xL Send0o caused trouble in the top lane as Cassiopeia, while Caedrel was largely shut out after picking Kayn in the jungle for Diabolus. It was a convincing win for exceL, finished by the half hour mark.
In game two, Diabolus fought back and went ahead in the early game, with Larssen in the mid lane picking Kassadin and Smiley taking Kai’Sa. However, despite this good start, exceL soon turned things around to go 6-4 up with a 4K gold lead, three drakes and the baron.
 

“exceL were the more composed side, no doubt bolstered by their time together practicing in exceL’s OMEN gaming house, and showed real togetherness and spirit throughout the finals”

 
Even when Diabolus went ahead, exceL never seemed to allow their opponents to take a strong gold lead, and were more efficient taking objectives while managing to maintain good CS.
In the third and final game, Diabolus kept their Kai’Sa/Braum bot lane with Smiley and Hadow, but xL’s Venzer and DuaLL were too much too handle as Caitlyn and Trundle again.
Venzer had a great third game with Caitlyn, going 7/1/2, while Kruimel caused Diabolus all kinds of problems across the series in the mid-lane.
Cool Kruimel was a handful, picking a trio of annoying champions to pester Diabolus, playing as Taliyah, Zoe and Ziggs across the series.
Igloo did not have the best series in the top-lane, going 1/6/2 in the final game as Cho’Gath.
 

Reaction

Team exceL were jubilant after their victory, leaving them on a high going into the last ESL Prem LoL finals next weekend.
Diabolus took the defeat graciously, but will be disappointed, especially after failing to progress to the ESL Prem finals.
However, with Riot UK’s new Forge of Champions tournament around the corner for the second split of 2018, and more exciting plans in store for 2019, Diabolus will no doubt be looking ahead at the long-term now.
Kieran Holmes-Darby, MD of exceL, believes his LoL team can now do the double and win the ESL Prem next week, after winning it in late 2017.
Here’s a selection of reaction from both teams, and other members of the UK League of Legends community:

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