This weekend's round of games will see two teams eliminated from the LEC Winter Split playoffs.
We are neck-deep into the LEC Winter Split so far as the playoffs will continue this weekend with two days of lower bracket matches as well as the upper bracket finals between G2 Esports and Team BDS. As the overall reigning LEC champions as well as the victors of last year's Winter Split, G2 will look to add the 12th regional title to its collection when it meets BDS for the best-of-five.
This will determine who will move on to the grand finals and book a spot at the upcoming Mid-Season Invitational in China later this year. As two teams from the LEC will qualify to MSI this year, both grand finalists will automatically claim both slots with the winner being seeded into a later stage in the tournament as compared to the first-runner up.
And joining both BDS and G2 in the fight for the coveted MSI spot are the likes of Fnatic and Team Vitality, who lost its respective matches over the weekend and have since dropped to the lower bracket. They are currently waiting on the winners from the first round of the lower bracket, mainly the winners between the GIANTX versus MAD Lions KOI series as well as the Team Heretics and SK Gaming match-up.
This weekend will be all about the lower bracket as we will see two teams leave the playoffs on Saturday, followed by another two on Sunday. While MDK did lose its regular season best-of-one against GIANTX, a best-of-three is a different setting altogether and it will be interesting to see which new org merger will pull through to the next round. The winner will go on to face Team Vitality in the lower bracket quarter-finals.
As for SK, their match-up against Team Heretics will be another exciting elimination series. Heretics already has the edge over SK during the group stages, despite SK being a great regular season team. Its playoff performances have not been great as the org have not been able to challenge for a title for some time now. But if SK were to win its series against Heretics and then go on to defeat Fnatic, it could stand a real chance of landing a top-three placement at the very least.
LEC Winter Split Playoffs - Schedule
Saturday, February 10th
GIANTXvsMAD Lions - 4:00 p.m. CET
Team HereticsvsSK Gaming - 7:00 p.m. CET
Sunday, February 11th
Team Vitality vs GTX/MDK - 4:00 p.m. CET
Fnatic vs TH/SK - 7:00 p.m. CET
Monday, February 12th
G2 EsportsvsTeam BDS - 4:00 p.m. CET