The Summer 2021 LEC League of Legends season is over – and the playoffs teams have been confirmed: Rogue, G2, Mad Lions, Misfits, Fnatic and Team Vitality.
For UK-based esports organisation Excel, it was heartbreak once again after they fell to G2 in the final game of the season. Going into the match, it was do or die – win and they reach playoffs for the first time in their history, lose and they miss out to Vitality.
It ended up as the latter for Excel, although they started the game with hope and looked like they might just make it through.
Excel secured first blood after Caps (Lissandra) went in a little too aggressive into Nukeduck in the mid-lane, only for him to get stunned and for Nukeduck to pick up first blood as LeBlanc instead.
“To everyone who supported us – thank you. We will work harder so you can share that sweet moment with us, today was just not it. Please send love to our players and coaching staff, they work so incredibly hard behind the scenes. Until next time.”
Excel Esports
Excel focused on farming and getting picks when they could, giving up drake for the first two heralds. This helped them make a gold lead of a few thousand, but the turning point was at the 22-minute mark. Excel smelt blood, they chased and chased G2, but they overstayed.
G2 made a couple of teleports to pincer Excel from behind. It was a bloodbath, and the UK org never recovered from this point onwards. Wunder as Dr Mundo was too much for Excel to handle, and Rekkles played a solid game as Tristana, going 5/0/4. There’s more stats in this Reddit post on the Excel G2 Summer 2021 final match.
Excel have come so far and got so close, but again fell at the final hurdle.
Excel added on Twitter: “To everyone who supported us – thank you. We will work harder so you can share that sweet moment with us, today was just not it. Please send love to our players and coaching staff, they work so incredibly hard behind the scenes. Until next time.”
Vitality took sixth place as Excel tied seventh with Astralis, in a super week that saw Vitality beat Schalke, Rogue and Astralis.
Aside from Excel, the other UK-based organisation in the LEC – Fnatic – finished in fifth place.
It’s a particularly sad season for Schalke, regardless of finishing bottom, as it was their final LEC season. Just over a month ago, it was announced that Team BDS had acquired Schalke 04’s LEC slot for €26.5m.
Following the 2021 Summer LEC Season, the playoffs teams are now locked in.
In the upper bracket, Rogue will face Misfits and Mad Lions will go up against G2. Then, in the lower bracket, Fnatic will face Vitality.
For more info on seeding, check out this handy video from British caster Medic.
The Summer 2021 LEC playoffs begin on August 13th.
Last season, Mad Lions won the 2021 LEC Spring playoffs.
Looking outside of the LEC at the UK leagues, London Esports won the Summer 2021 UKLC and LDN UTD won the lower-tier Summer 2021 UKEL.
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.
