A major power cut across Spain and Portugal left many LEC players, staff, and on-air broadcast talent stranded in Madrid following on from the LEC Roadtrip hosted by Movistar Koi last weekend.
The pros from MKoi, G2 Esports, Fnatic, and Giantx all faced travel issues upon trying to return to Berlin with the latter two still yet to return to their bases in Germany at the time of writing. Following severe delays and flight cancellations, British organisations Fnatic and Giantx have had to detour to the Czech capital of Prague before they can finally return home. G2’s roster, on the other hand have made it back safely though the organisation’s official X (formerly Twitter) account lamented that the power cut came too late to prevent the team’s 0-2 weekend.
Many players had previously posted how they wanted the LEC to relocate to Madrid permanently and didn’t want to return to Berlin. The power cut led to a real monkey’s paw moment as most of them may now be careful what they wish for.
The incident left large parts of Spain and Portugal without power and mobile data connection, including both capitals in Madrid and Lisbon. Riot Games announced earlier this week that the LEC will return to Madrid later this year for the Summer 2025 finals, which will be held in the Caja Mágica. That venue hosts the currently ongoing Madrid Open tennis tournament which was also affected by the power cut with play cancelled on Monday, April 28th before games resumed the following morning.
Many caught up in the delays took any opportunity they could to give updates on social media with LEC host Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere admitting it was quite the experience: “Got power back around midnight last night after almost 11 hours wow! Crazy how fast things devolved in chaos, and the grid being down so no data at all… I learned some valuable lessons.”
Fnatic’s team manager Geomancy confirmed that they and Giantx together meant around 20 people couldn’t get flights back to Germany. She also revealed that restaurants and supermarkets were shut so the team had to resort to convenience stores for food. Meaning plain salami tortilla wraps were Fnatic’s final taste of Spanish cuisine, as well as copious amounts of crisps and cookies judging by this tweet from support Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle.
Meanwhile, Fnatic coach Fabian “GrabbZ” Lohmann lamented the lack of preparation his team will have on this week’s huge new patch ahead of the next game week: “Felt like Katy Perry ‘coming back to earth’ after touching non-Spanish ground after this experience. If everything goes well we’ll have 2 days of practice on the new patch wohoo!”
With huge updates to gold bounties, tier 3 boots, and an all new Atakhan form, the Fnatic and Giantx players have their work cut out for them to get a good meta read in just two days ahead of this weekend’s games.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
