Fnatic Rising win dramatic five-game UKLC final after beating BT Excel in what was arguably the battle of the ADCs

uklc

Fnatic Rising pulled off a remarkable reverse sweep against BT Excel to win the UK League Championship (UKLC) grand finals today.

They defeated BT Excel 3-2, after coming back from a 2-0 deficit.

It was a surprising result to some, because despite Fnatic’s talent and reputation (they had won the domestic quadruple in the UK and Ireland last year), BT Excel had gone undefeated in the UKLC Spring 2020 Split group stage with 14 wins.

In many ways, this final became a battle of the ADCs, prompted by some pre-game smack talk from BT Excel’s Deadly to Fnatic Rising’s xMatty.

From the first two games in today’s final, you would have thought Deadly’s intimidation had worked.

Excel stormed game one, with Deadly popping off as Kalista, going 9/1/7.

Then we went into an epic second game that lasted 54 minutes. It was incredibly even, end to end stuff with kills being traded all over.

Both teams played relatively safe once it got deep into the late game, knowing that one mistake could throw the game.

In the end, Excel managed to push through, buoyed by a scary Draven played by Deadly.

Just when it looked like Excel would claim a dominant 3-0 victory, xMatty and Fnatic turned up the heat just when they needed to.

In games three, four and five xMatty helped make the difference – allowing Fnatic to maintain their status as holders of the UKLC title. The win gives them three back to back UKLC titles, started by Fnatic Rising’s first UKLC finals win in early 2019.

xMatty popped off as Ezreal (6/1/4), Kalista (7/1/4) and Kalista again (5/1/6) in games three, four and five respectively, earning him series MVP and forcing Deadly to eat humble pie.

Both Fnatic and Excel have already qualified for the European Masters, where they will face the best teams from other European Regional Leagues (ERLs) from April 6th.

However, it is Fnatic who take first seed in the EU Masters following today’s victory in the UKLC grand finals.

Fnatic also took the time to engage in some banter on social media:

It was an exciting final to follow, with more than 7,000 viewers at one point on the Dreamhack League of Legends Twitch channel.

Shoutout to the desk hosts (Excoundrel and Guldborg) and casters (Aux and Hiprain), who did well to keep the show going despite some production issues.

The UKLC finals were of course previously due to take place in a studio in Sweden, but were made online-only due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The rosters

  • BT Excel: Send0o, Taxer, Special, Deadly, KaSing
  • Fnatic Rising: Pride, Dan, MagiFelix, xMatty, Bravado
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