After an explosive set of games and many games deemed upsets, three strong teams lead their groups in the first week of the European Championship Series.
Gambit Gaming started out the day taking a very early tower away from Fnatic straight off the bat after a brave 3v1 dive onto Malphite top. Fnatic stayed even early in the game until Gambit took a 2 man dragon, which has been their trademark for the tournament thus far.
Unfortunately for Fnatic, Gambit consistently stayed ahead for the majority of the game, coming back stronger than ever for day 2 and opening up with a crushing victory over Fnatic.
Next up, we had Evil Geniuses who had a fantastic day 1 facing off against Copenhagen Wolves. The game was off to a close start, but Copenhagen Wolves picked off two players from Evil Geniuses, securing a slight gold advantage with Evil Geniuses tagging very slightly behind.
Eventually, Evil Geniuses' experience proved effective and after elevating their gold league, they simply all became too tanky, even Wickd on Akali.
The biggest upset of the night happened here with Copenhagen Wolves following up by demolishing Gambit Gaming. Though the game started out pretty stable for both sides, Copenhagen showed that they were no 2nd rate team and could rumble with the best.
Copenhagen Wolves steadily and decisively destroyed Gambit Gaming, nailing a win on the board.
As if that upset wasn't enough, we saw the grand finale epic of SK Gaming vs Evil Geniuses with results not shifted in the favor that many would have expected. Though it took a long time for SK Gaming to clean it up, they took the game home and built brilliantly.
Though Ocelote was shut down early by Krepo's roaming style and the massive amounts of pressure, he built himself for utility and tankiness to remain a threat in the fights. SK was very intuitive, building 4 randuins to counter Evil Geniuses' team composition. Evil Geniuses commenced their trademark stalling but it wasn't enough to hold off the passion of SK gaming this time around.
The results of the European LCS would leave several teams tied up and no one team clearly in the lead. The teams are very close in terms of skill and we'll have to wait until next week to see who is decisively best to worst in the European scene.
Results of Week 1 of EU LCS
Tune in Thursday for more extensive coverage of the Championship Series!