Photo credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games
G2 Esports defeated their rivals Fnatic 3-1 today to win the first LEC Season Finals, held in Sud de France Arena, Montpellier.
They took the first two games in the final, with Fnatic taking the third, and G2 securing the fourth to win the series.
G2 looked solid throughout, with grand final MVP ManLikeCaps particularly on form, going 7/1/2, 6/2/9, 7/4/2 and 10/0/7.
The result comes after G2 also won the Winter and Summer 2023 LEC seasons, making them the top European League of Legends esports team this year.
Fnatic, meanwhile, reached the grand final after another typically impressive lower-bracket run for the organisation, where Fnatic defeated Excel Esports, Team BDS and Mad Lions 3-2 to reach G2.
Fnatic said they were ‘heartbroken to not be able to bring more this series, with the trophy so close at hand’.
“Despite this, we want to express how proud we are of this year’s trajectory, from a catastrophic LEC 2023 Winter Split to fighting all the way to represent here in the grand finals.
“The year’s not over yet. Korea awaits, and we’ll do everything in our power to prepare for the world stage. Thank you for your ever-unwavering support.”
Today’s match also comes after Fnatic CEO Sam Mathews commented following Fnatic’s win over Mad Lions yesterday.
He referred back to the situation at the start of 2023, when Fnatic got off to a poor start in the LEC.
“The hate we endured this year was unprdecendented, regardless we stood by a person we knew had talent and built a better process and system around him: [Fnatic LoL director] Dardo.”
Sam also explained why G2 had a fan space at the finals but Fnatic didn’t.
“G2 requested for this direct to LEC and were granted seating in advance,” Sam said. “However, we weren’t aware this was possible and by the time we requested it was too late, so only G2 received this privilege of the finalists. We’ve discussed with LEC and agreed a process moving forward.”
Worlds 2023 approaches
Three teams from the LEC have now qualified for the 2023 League of Legends World Championship (aka Worlds): G2 Esports, Fnatic and Mad Lions.
A fourth, Team BDS, have qualified for the Worlds Qualifying Series 2023, and will face North America’s Golden Guardians on October 9th to determine who qualifies.
The current list of Worlds 2023 teams include:
- Gen.G
- T1
- KT Rolster
- Dplus
- JDG
- BLG
- LNG
- G2
- Fnatic
- Mad Lions
- NRG
- Cloud9
- Team Liquid
And the play-ins teams are:
- CTBC Flying Oyster
- Detonation FocusMe
- Gam Esports
- Loud
- PSG Talon
- Rainbow7
- Team Whales
- TBC: Team BDS or Golden Guardians
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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.
