(Photo by Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games)
G2 Esports picked up yet another European League of Legends LEC trophy today after defeating Fnatic 3-0 in the Summer LEC 2024 finals.
G2 cemented their dominance in the league, winning their third shield in a row this year, having already won the Winter LEC and Spring LEC earlier in 2024. They also won the Winter, Summer and LEC Finals last year.
And in being crowned champions today, G2 have qualified for Worlds 2024. They are one of two teams that have qualified for the major world championship, along with MSI winners Gen.G.
However, all these wins don’t necessarily mean it was a dominant display on the rift today.
Fnatic took the lead in all three games, only to let G2 back in. Fnatic had a 5k gold lead in game one at around 16 minutes, and a 5k lead in game two at 18 minutes.
“This is more than in Fnatic’s control,” UK caster Medic said at the time, in game two. “This is a demolition by Fnatic. They’re 5k gold ahead at 18mins, their ADC is 3k in the lead, and G2 are left wanting so far.”
Fellow UK caster Vedius countered: “Those are all valid points, Medic, but any Fnatic fan will tell you, we’ve been in this position before…”
He was right. Fnatic capitulated. It was even worse in game three, with Fnatic ahead 14-6 at 13 minutes, with a 6k gold lead.
So while it was joy for G2 fans, it was painful, frustrating and embarrassing for Fnatic fans. And it takes away from Fnatic’s strong performance in the Summer 2024 LEC playoffs so far, with them having beaten GiantX 2-1, SK 2-0 and G2 3-2 beforehand.
Fnatic will look to refocus for the LEC Season Finals which kick off on August 10th 2024, as they hope to qualify for Worlds there.
Let’s look at some of the reaction below.
G2 react to Summer LEC 2024 final victory over Fnatic: ‘We had more scaling and played well late game’
It was all smiles on the G2 socials and in the post-match interviews today.
Support player Mikyx said after the win: “I feel absolutely great. I’m so excited to qualify for Worlds. It’s a good relief, to not have to worry about it too much. It feels nice that we’re gonna go there, and I’m looking forward to the Season Finals as well. I hope we can qualify to Munich and beat Mad Lions. I’m curious as to what they’ll bring to the table.”
Jungler Yike added and joked with Mikyx: “We were behind a lot in these games. I don’t know really what happened, I saw a lot of deaths in the bot lane, but we had more scaling and played well late game.
“I think this is probably our worst split so far, so I’m really happy we came back and took the 3-0.”
Mid-laner and finals MVP Caps said: “It feels good, especially after last week. Coming up against Fnatic again and winning this time around. It was maybe not a clean 3-0, but it was a 3-0 nonetheless, so we’re happy.
“We’ve been a team for a long time now, and we have very good ideas on different gamestates and what we want to do. We drafted for late game today and had good comeback tools, especially with the Ornn and the Brand and Zyra doing a lot of work. We were still confident even being behind on gold, and turned it around.
“We do need to step up our performances because I think we still have a lot of things we can improve on from today. Fnatic will try way harder in the Season Finals, they’re going to be angry at us so will probably come up with some new strategies, so we need to keep [ours] even fresher.”
Caps, G2
ADC Hans Sama said: “The early game was hard, but I feel like we kept a good vibe, hope and faith that we’d make good plays and come back. We did that. I think we played very good from behind.
“I think the Fnatic bot lane played very well, they were confident to go for the all-in. Noah was so fed, so I was sweating for every creep! But I managed to farm a bit and come back. My team played well. It’s also very good to qualify for Worlds – we want to do better [at the international level].”
Top-laner Brokenblade said: “We thought they’d go for scaling, and they didn’t ban Ornn. I was very behind but it didn’t matter because I’d be stronger at late-game. I think we just played the team play better. They were challenging us in the laning phase, but I think we played the map better. Our jungle and support were very active on the map, and much better than Fnatic’s, and that’s the reason why we won. We took the good fights and Fnatic did not.”
Fnatic react to 3-0 loss to G2 in LEC Summer 2024 finals: ‘It’s sad being so far ahead in games but not knowing how to close them’
Top-laner Oscarinin said on Twitter (auto translated): “It’s sad that being so far ahead in all the games we don’t know how to close any of them. We don’t deserve to win if we can’t close in those situations. Even so, and even though it’s hard to lose 3-0, I think we played better than in the semis. If [the victory is] not here, it will be in the season finals.”
Jungler Razork added: “It’s very hard to throw three games in a row. I’m really screwed.”
North American streamer IWillDominate said it was “the most disgusting series I might have ever watched a team play”.
UK streamer Caedrel said: “I am speechless, I have no words. How in the fuck is that even possible once, let alone three fucking times.”
The Fnatic subreddit is also painful to look at right now. Headlines (at the time of writing) include ‘this team is so disappointing’, ‘I’m very disgusted’ and ‘very depressing and pathetic’ to name a few.
Fnatic’s Twitter painted a bleak and frustrated picture too. Fans expressed their disappointment and the Fnatic account said it was ‘beyond and embarrassing performance today’.
Fnatic’s social media manager, Davard, also addressed criticism and nasty comments he received, and spoke about the difficulty of posting about such losses.
“A lot of criticism around my LEC coverage tonight, so to be honest I’m gonna take a bit of a break from Twitter/X. Losses like today ain’t easy to cover to be honest, and it’s very hard to find a right/on tone way to do it.
“This is never an easy post [about a loss like this] to make – whatever you say will be spinned one way or another. Depending on the fan, to be positive is to be dismissive of the results and to be negative is to be overly pessimistic and not supportive. Theres very much a trend with my previous tweets of it being ‘we’ll come back better stronger’ which Ive been told comes across quite tonedeaf and repetitive sometimes, especially after harsh losses – and gets meme’d a lot by other orgs/fans – so i think there is honestly a personal factor with this post.
“But, I dont think today’s results were what anyone in the org expects or finds acceptable. I do have the boys’ backs, but I think doing better also comes down to acknowledging past failures.”
The news comes a few days after Fnatic celebrated their 20th birthday with a party at their London HQ. We’ll be back with an article on that, including an interview with Fnatic founder and CEO Sam Mathews soon.
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.
