LEC 2023 Winter: Regular Season Week 2, Day 1 Recap

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LEC 2023 Winter: Regular Season Week 2, Day 1 Recap

The second LEC superweek started with a bang with the top ten teams who were hungry for more wins.


After a week of preparation, the LEC's best and brightest gathered together for the resumption of the Regular Season.

During the break, the LEC had a lot of content to show their fans. In a recent interview, the world was introduced to the newest member of Team Astralis: 113. A rising star from Turkey found his humble start at SuperMassive academy and then went on to win games in EU Masters before making it to the EMEA's top 10. As good as it is to see promising players enter the scene, only time will tell if this injection of fresh talent will be enough to take Astralis to new heights.

Another Patch 13.1 round-robin meant another batch of wins and losses. Though they ranked low on the current leaderboard, it was still too early for teams like Team BDS and Fnatic to throw in the towel. The 26th was still far away, and after a week of much-needed R&R, the teams were ready to take on the inter-regional stage once again.

Here's everything that went down on Day 4 of the LEC's Regular Season!

Vitality vs Astralis

Perkz and Bo definitely made for a formidable power duo, even when faced with Astralis' Yuumi-Zeri bot lane. The Spanish team was extremely eager to eke out their first win in this match, and despite losing a close 4th game, they valiantly fought tooth and nail until the end.

An intense team skirmish surrounding first drake ended when Vitality picked off Yummi at the botlane due to good positioning. After then, a good score lead was captured by Kobbe, which meant that AST entered midgame with an important advantage.

Astralis had a constantly hard time to initiate teamfights due to the range that VIT leveraged. Consequently, they had to rely on isolating key opponents. Fully utilizing Yuumi's talents led to Astralis engaging with pincer movements that forced Vitality into defense. Well-played clashes seemingly turned the game around for Astralis' underdogs. After a high-stakes back-and-forth, the game was shortly ended.

Vitality will march towards a showdown with G2 on Monday.

  • Teams: VIT 1 – 0 AST
  • Time: 31:29
  • Kills: 11 – 10
  • Turrets: 10 – 10
  • Gold: 58.4k – 50.8k
  • Dragons: 4 – 1
  • Barons: 1 – 0

Fnatic vs Team BDS

The volatile picks and teamcomps were noted before the next two LEC teams rocked stage with a surprisingly close match-up.

A scrappy bottom jungle clash ended in a one-for-one, but the vision on the map was mostly controlled by BDS, which helped them win an early-game gold lead.

BDS ramped up and accelerated through the match-up's mid game while maintaining a 4k gold lead.  Humanoid and Razork responded in kind by keeping the frontline alive while Wunder picked off vulnerable flank champions.

With a 20-minute baron and a big gold lead on the side of BDS, the game's winner felt decided after a sustained team fight in the jungle. The Elder Dragon take was the final nail on the coffin.

  • Teams: FNC 0 – 1 BDS
  • Time: 38:03
  • Kills: 9 – 17
  • Turrets: 3 – 9
  • Gold: 61.2k – 71.4k
  • Dragons: 1 – 4
  • Barons: 0 – 2

Heretics vs KOI

A tight turnaround in the midgame let Team Heretics take their second win for the Regular Season. The game stretched out for as long as KOI could hold, but their brave efforts were in vain.

Despite Yuumi's presence on red side, most of the engagements landed more objectives for TH. Thanks to Mersa's flawless support play and Evi's K'Sante, the score picked up more times in favor of Heretics. The match-up culminated in an intense showdown for the fourth and final dragon before the game slowly but surely drew to a close.

  • Teams: TH 1 – 0 KOI
  • Time: 44:30
  • Kills: 20 – 11
  • Turrets: 11 – 5
  • Gold: 85.0k – 76.7k
  • Dragons: 5 – 1
  • Barons: 2 – 1

SK Gaming vs G2 Esports

SK Gaming finally broke the first win streak of the LEC top-rankers in this fast-paced match.

Sertuss' Azir exercised control over the entirety of the game. Every scrappy team clash fought had his emperor's defense pushing important G2 players out of formation. Even Caps' Akali had a tough time playing around SK due to team synergy. This meant that G2 needed to focus on objectives to compensate for the score gap. This gave them some measure of success around Baron, but it only delayed what was to come.

Many more engagements in the top side jungle bled their way into G2's base as they scrambled to form a strong defense. With an 8-kill gap, there wasn't much their pincer flank tactics could do as SK courageously closed the game.

  • Teams: SK 1 – 0 G2
  • Time: 34:40
  • Kills: 23 – 13
  • Turrets: 9 – 3
  • Gold: 64.8k – 59.2k
  • Dragons: 3 – 1
  • Barons: 1 – 1

MAD Lions vs Excel

Another slow Rift match involving Yuumi and Azir ended with the MAD Lions taking their 3rd official win in the Regular Season.

The slow early game broke the silence when a 2v2 that dove under MAD's bot side turret led to XL getting first blood, while Elyoya worked on getting Herald.

Risky trades came to a head when both sides contested Baron. With the teamfight falling in MAD's favor, they quickly retook the lead when they put Excel 3 kills behind. After the midgame power spike, Chasy's smart K'Sante plays put so much pressure on the enemy team that they couldn't do anything but play defense until the game ended.

  • Teams: MAD 1 – 0 XL
  • Time: 25:35
  • Kills: 14 – 7
  • Turrets: 9 – 1
  • Gold: 52.0k – 40.0k
  • Dragons: 4 – 1
  • Barons: 1 – 0

CURRENT SCORES

  • Astralis: 0W – 4L
  • Excel: 1W – 3L
  • Fnatic: 1W – 3L
  • G2 Esports: 3W – 1L
  • Heretics: 2W – 2L
  • KOI: 1W – 3L
  • MAD Lions: 3W – 1L
  • SK Gaming: 2W – 2L
  • Team BDS: 2W – 2L
  • Vitality: 4W – 0L

 

For the latest news on the LEC Winter Split, follow ESTNN.

LEC 2023 Winter: Regular Season Week 2, Day 1 Recap
Paul Goño
Paul started writing for ESTNN in 2022, the same year he beat his first Souls game. An avid fan of RPGs, his all-time favorites include Baldur's Gate 3, Assassin’s Creed and Kingdom Hearts 2. Besides being a professional nerd, he still struggles to get over the broken PS2 memory card that stored years of his save files.