2023 LEC Spring Split Week 1 Day 1 Recap: Excel Starts the New Split on a Positive Note

The second split of LEC for the 2023 season is underway.

The inaugural Winter Split for the LEC saw a victorious G2. Coming into the 2023 LEC Spring, G2 was once again the big favorites with teams like KOI and MAD following close. There are also multiple new teams contesting at the top of the table like SK Gaming and BDS.

There were also multiple roster changes in the short offseason. The biggest headline was the return of the star bot laner Upset in a Vitality jersey. During his time in Fnatic, Upset was seen as the best ADC in the league. This time around he will try to help Vitality turn their ship around after another disappointing regular season.

Fnatic was another team that made big changes. After missing playoffs, the storied organization made some changes, the most significant one being parting ways with the veteran top laner Wunder. He was replaced with Fnatic’s LVP top laner, Oscarinin. They also promoted the support Advienne.

Spring Split starts TODAY:@MedicCasts is here to run you through all the changes for 13.4, the patch of the #LEC Spring Regular Season! pic.twitter.com/piiWCcJp3j

— LEC (@LEC) March 11, 2023

Excel vs Fnatic

The first game of the split was between two teams that had high expectations for Winter but failed to meet them. The early game did not have too much action. Fnatic managed to pick up the first blood in the bot side, while XL found a solo kill from Odo in the top lane. Teams also traded the early game objectives. But Fnatic’s mid game seemed too unorganized. The team could not find too many fights and had a lot of trouble following the engages of Razork. They also struggled to deal with the fed K’Sante from Odoamne. The veteran top laner was too ahead in gold thanks to a couple of early kills and managed to dominate the teamfights. In the end, Fnatic was unable to get through the massive tank which meant starting the new split with another loss.

• Teams: XL 1 – 0 FNC
• Time: 30:06
• Kills: 11 – 3
• Turrets: 8 – 4
• Gold: 54k – 48.2k
• Dragons: 2 – 2
• Barons: 1 – 0

BDS vs SK

BDS came into the game with a bold draft choice as they locked in Yasuo for Adam but their game plan was mainly focused around the bot lane. They found success there with an early gank, and continued reganking and punishing Exakick. SK did a good job of bracing the storm by playing for drakes. The first couple of fights were going BDS's way as they found engages with Yasuo, but SK found more success once they became the ones making the first move. Two big engages from SK near the dragon pit secured them the Soul and a Baron. These objectives turned the gold lead around toward SK and they were able to steamroll BDS to close out the game.

clean @SertussLoL pic.twitter.com/CJkVLxjiLB

— LEC (@LEC) March 11, 2023

• Teams: BDS 0 – 1 SK
• Time: 35:52
• Kills: 7 – 16
• Turrets: 3 – 8
• Gold: 59.3k – 66.8k
• Dragons: 2 – 4
• Barons: 0 – 1

Vitality vs MAD

We got ourselves an unusual matchup in the mid lane with Aurelion Sol for Perkz and Cho'Gath for Nisqy. And Perkz found himself an early lead on the hard scaling champ thanks to a good bot lane roam. He also stole the second drake of the game which helped his team stack the objectives. MAD were already behind and a botched dive on Photon in the side lane did not help their cause. The only victory MAD found during mid game was the one drake they took to delay the enemy Soul. While the game wasn't particularly close, the VIT lead exploded after MAD tried to go for a Baron, resulting in them getting wiped and giving up the objective. After this point ending the game was easy for VIT.

calculated pic.twitter.com/t2iYyDIIEf

— LEC (@LEC) March 11, 2023

• Teams: VIT 1 – 0 MAD
• Time: 28:00
• Kills: 21 – 2
• Turrets: 11 – 1
• Gold: 54.4k – 41.7k
• Dragons: 3 – 1
• Barons: 1 – 0

Astralis vs KOI

A good early game from Astralis, especially in the bot lane, gave them a small lead. They were also able to start stacking drakes toward an early Soul. KOI somewhat slowed their snowballing, but scaling wasn't exactly on their side. Astralis used their drake lead to go for an early Baron which KOI could not contest. They then found a great engage in bot lane during their Baron siege, ending the game with an upset.

• Teams: AST – KOI
• Time: 28:18
• Kills: 9 – 3
• Turrets: 8 – 3
• Gold: 52.2k – 43.8k
• Dragons: 3 – 1
• Barons: 1 – 0

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