LEC Playoff Preview: Round 3 | Origen vs Fnatic

Fnatic versus Origen has delivered some amazing moments for us in the past. Most notably they gave us the 2015 Summer Finals and strong performances in Worlds of that year. After Origen was relegated at the end of Spring Split 2017, it seemed that we had seen the end of the Origen brand. Thanks to Astralis and Riot introducing franchising we have another chance to see this rivalry come back to life. The series starts at 11:00 AM ET with the winner of the match facing G2 Esports in the final, the following day.

Fnatic

Roster:

Top Lane: Bwipo

Jungle: Broxah

Mid Lane: Nemesis

ADC: Rekkles

Support: Hylissang

Coach:  YoungBuck

Fnatic continued their dominating style of play after a 3-1 series victory against Splyce. Some of the games, at the time, seemed closer, there was a sense that Splyce could potentially take over, but after the series, it was clear that Fnatic where a class above. Splyce looked to exploit the top side of the map against Fnatic and successfully stopped Bwipo for the majority of games. Something that is no surprise for Fnatic, as this has been the strategy utilized by their previous two opponents.

Bwipo mentioned that for this previous series, his mental performance was not as strong as he struggled to handle all of the pressure that Splyce threw his way. Origen will be a whole different beast and could prove to be the true stopping force of this Fnatic train. Fnatic will need to find a way to help Nemesis, when he faces NukeDuck, that way Origen does not have two clear ways to attack this Fnatic lineup. Fnatic will want to balance the map out and have their bot lane due be in winning matchups, that way pressure can be applied in other areas of the map. Relying on Rekkles has usually been what Fnatic do in crunch situations, and this should be no different.

Origen

Roster:

Top Lane: Alphari

Jungle: Kold

Mid Lane: NukeDuck

ADC: Patrik

Support: Mithy

Coach: Guilhoto

Origen suffered a 3-0 defeat against G2 Esports and will look to bounce back against Fnatic to bounce back and punch their ticket for the finals. With almost a full month without stage time, Origen looked sharp in their opening match against G2, but after such an intense game, Origen started showing signs of tilt and was unable to put much more of a fight when reaching the deciding game three. After an extra week of preparations for a grueling (potential) two-day set, Origen will have studied Fnatic's tactics to hopefully show a five-game series.

Origen has had the luxury of being able to watch two Fnatic series before they set foot into Rotterdam. Thus Origen has to be favored, even if it is in the slightest of margin. With that in mind, one has to be aware that both these teams were also scrim partners for the majority of the playoffs and will have a lot of familiarity with each other.

Origen will want to play through their solo lanes to have the highest possible chance at a victory. NukeDuck, in particular, has to have a massive performance against, the rookie, Nemesis for Origen to dominate Fnatic. Alphari will also have his hands full when he goes up against Bwipo. With the help of Kold, there is a good chance they can shut down Fnatic's top side threats. They do have to be careful with the disparity bot lane, because if they do not, then Rekkles and Hylisang can take over the game.

Who do you think will be the team that takes on G2 for the LEC title? Are any of these two teams capable of taking down G2? Let us know via Twitter.

Images Via: LoL Esports / LEC