Throws and upsets: five things we learned from LEC Versus Week 1
The LEC returned last weekend with the first iteration of the LEC Versus event with two invited ERL teams.
There was a lot of excitement for Karmine Corp Blue and Los Ratones, yet the LEC Week 1 viewership was down from last year.
Nonetheless, LEC Versus provided three days of entertaining games with a lot of chaos and surprises.
With that in mind, here are the biggest takeaways from LEC Versus Week 1.
Don’t trust a gold lead
Riot Games has made massive changes to League of Legends in 2026 with a brand new meta.
With this, the game has become very snowbally with wild level differentials between players during matches.
However, the LEC saw multiple throws from teams with big gold leads.
The organisation formerly known as Team BDS made their debut as Shifters, but fate did not shift in their favour.
Against GIANTX, they had a 2.5k gold lead and were sieging the base, but GIANTX managed to defend their base and get an ace 4v5.
This allowed GIANTX rush down the other end and barely take down Shifters’ Nexus.
Meanwhile, Natus Vincere (NAVI) had a fantastic start with their rookies looking extremely impressive in their first two wins.
NAVI looked set for a 3-0 week as they racked up a 10k gold lead over Fnatic.
Yet, cocky plays and mis-played fights allowed Fnatic to make an unexpected comeback and ruin NAVI’s short-lived, flawless record.
Los Ratones have a lot of work to do
There was a lot of excitement to see Marc ‘Caedrel’ Lamont’s Los Ratones compete in the LEC.
But it looks like it might be too big a jump up from the NLC and EMEA Masters.
Los Ratones were the only team that failed to win a game in LEC Week 1.
Though they did have some difficult match-ups in Fnatic and Karmine Corp.
However, the loss to fellow ERL side Karmine Corp Blue will definitely have stung.
At the very least, Los Ratones put in a much better performance against KCorp in their last game of the week.
The team needs to build off that showing and fix small mistakes to bounce back next week.
SK Gaming’s new roster is indeed a circus
SK Gaming are the wildcards of this season and proved it with wildly different performances.
Support Mihael ‘Mikyx’ Mehle has assembled a risky roster, bringing Adam ‘LIDER’ Ilyasov and Martin ‘Wunder’ Hansen back to competitive play.
The team had a fantastic win over Fnatic with Wunder turning back the years with a superb game on Kennen.
However, the team were then abysmal against the 0-2 G2 Esports, with LIDER in particular struggling.
The positives are that Wunder still has it, and rookie ADC Josip ‘Jopa’ Čančar is looking great too.
But the team also looks rather predictable, with Mikyx roaming relentlessly to camp for LIDER.
The early signs say expect some wild wins and then disappointing lows from this team.
Roster continuity might be overrated
Three LEC teams have come into the new year without changing their rosters.
And due to this, they’re expected to have an edge in winter as other rosters get used to playing with each other.
Yet, this didn’t seem to be the case in Week 1.
Of those three, GIANTX were the only team that didn’t make Worlds last year.
To warrant the faith in the group of five players, they needed to show some growth and potential.
Yet, GIANTX didn’t look convincing in any of their matches. They won their first two, but only because their opponents made massive throws.
And one of the teams that threw against them was G2, the LoL Worlds Quarter-finalists who have kept the same roster.
Yet, G2 lost their first two matches to GIANTX and Movistar KOI and also looked rather poor. Their win against SK doesn’t mean much either.
Meanwhile, MKOI’s unchanged roster got off to a flying start and appeared to have fixed a lot of issues from last year.
However, they then got absolutely decimated by Shifters in the biggest stomp of the week, leaving question marks over them too.
But this was only Week 1 of a round featuring only best-of-ones, so it’s much too soon to jump to conclusions.
The LEC ‘circle of suck’ returns
As alluded to already, there was a lot of inconsistency in Week 1 of LEC Versus. But that’s to be expected from the first tournament of the year.
Surprisingly, no team has managed to maintain a perfect record. Out of the 12 teams, seven of them are tied for first at 2-1.
With a snowbally meta and every team struggling to close out games, there are a lot of improvements to be made across the league.
But because of this unpredictable nature, it’s very difficult to get a read on the levels of teams. Especially as G2 are known for slow starts.
Still, if we had to pick, MKOI came across as the most impressive team, judging solely from the first three days of games.
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