Image credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games Flickr
In a surprising start to the League of Legends LEC in 2023, UK-headquartered esports organisations Fnatic and Excel have finished as the bottom two teams in the LEC Winter 2023 regular season.
They placed ninth and tenth respectively, with Fnatic winning two and losing seven, and Excel winning just one out of nine games.
It’s a pretty dismal and shocking placing for the two teams, who finished fifth and sixth in the LEC Summer 2022 season to reach the playoffs, with Fnatic going on to play in the World Championship.
The other eight tems will now progress to the LEC Winter 2023 group stage – but what did Fnatic and Excel have to say about the matter?
Fnatic apologise for their LEC Winter 2023 regular season performance
Fnatic said in a statement on their social channels: “We are sorry that we could not advance past the regular season of the split. We know that our staff and players have put in their all and will do that again to improve and move forward.
“The outcome is not acceptable for Fnatic, nor is it a reflection of the level of performance our fans deserve to see from us in the LEC.
“We will take the time to reflect and come back even stronger. We would like to extend a huge unwavering support during both the highs and the lows.”
Fnatic League of Legends director, Dardo, said he was ashamed about the situation:
Support player Rhuckz, who was promoted from Fnatic’s academy to their first team before the LEC Winter 2023 split, said: “I’m sorry. To the Fnatic fans and my own. This is obviously not the result I expected to have in my first nine games in the LEC. We are clearly bad and have multiple problems and this is not the Fnatic standards. Let’s see what the future holds.”
Rekkles, who returned to Fnatic in December, commented: “I want to say sorry for everything and for not being able to deliver. It hasn’t been a good start to the new year, it’s been really rough.
“I haven’t played good and haven’t been able to contribute much to the team’s success, I’ve probably contributed more to the team’s failures. It’s a tough moment to go through.”
Rekkles, Fnatic
“It’s not a place the club wants to be in, or what I want to be in, or my teammates want to be in, or you guys [want to be in] from what I’ve seen from the Fnatic subreddit. I know sorry is not enough, but that’s the only thing we can do right now. I’ll go into more detail another time, but right now I feel like a sorry is in order.”
Wunder described Fnatic’s LEC Winter 2023 split as ‘pathetic’.
Excel on their LEC Winter 2023 regular season
Excel Esports may have reached LEC playoffs for the first time in their history last year – reaching playoffs in both 2022 splits in fact – but finishing in the bottom two of the LEC Winter 2023 regular season has left them disappointed.
Tim Reichert, who was promoted to Excel Esports CEO last month, said it was a horrible split, but that he remains positive for the year ahead.
He also said more in this video:
Vetheo also said: “This split has been a nightmare from the start to the end. My own performance and what we showed as a team has been so poor that I feel really ashamed. However it’s the beggining of a really long season and we can only keep tryharding and bounce back from this disaster. Sorry all.”
Odoamne described it as an ‘absolute cringe split’:
The other eight teams in the LEC will take part in the group stage starting February 11th 2023.
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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.
