MAD Lions Preview – Worlds 2023

MAD Lions Preview could answer some questions about MAD Lions, a team that historically had some horrible international showings.

The 2023 League of Legends World Championship is going full throttle in just a few days! The Play-Ins ended last Sunday, with Team BDS and GAM Esports emerging victorious. This means that PSG Talon, CTBC Flying Oyster, Movistar R7, Team Whales, LOUD and DetonatioN FocusMe has to head home and prepare for the 2024 season.

But the best part is yet to come, as this week marks the beginning of the Swiss Stage, where teams such as JDG, T1, Gen.G and G2 Esports enter the fray! One of the first matches will be played by MAD Lions, a team which has a lot to prove, as they have a bad record in international events – but the time might have come to change that.

MAD Lions Preview

MAD Lions Team History

The Lions started to compete in the LEC at the start of the 2020 season, after buying Splyce and their spot in the biggest European League of Legends Tournament. They had a strong first season, finishing 3^rd in the Spring Split and 4^th in the Summer Split with the roster of Orome, Shad0w, Humanoid, Carzzy and Kaiser.

The team’s most successful season to date was in 2021. After Armut and Elyoya joined the squad, they managed to make it to the LEC Finals in both the Spring and Summer Splits – and won both of them. During Spring, they reverse swept Rogue, then in the Summer, they had a dominant victory over Fnatic, defeating them 3-1.

Even though they had incredible performances domestically, MAD Lions never managed to make a splash internationally. Their best placing was a top 8 in the 2021 Worlds, but they had to fight their way out of a 4-way tie in the Group Stage, then instantly got knocked out by DAMWON Kia in the Playoffs.

Since then, they participated in Worlds 2022 but failed to make it out of the Play-Ins, then went on to play in this year’s MSI, only to get knocked out by G2 Esports. While they are always among the top contenders domestically, what MAD Lions is really looking for is an international win – or at least a closer finish to the Finals.

MAD Lions Roster

• Kim “Chasy” Dong-hyeon
• Javier “Elyoya” Prades Batalla
• Yasin “Nisqy” Dincer
• Matyás “Carzzy” Orság
• Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov

MAD Lions Playstyle

MAD Lions are an interesting team, as they don’t have a positive winrate in 2023, but they are still here at Worlds. This is due to their impressive adaptability in BoX matches: they can find gaps in the opponents strategy and exploit them even on the verge of defeat, just as they did in the Spring LEC Finals when they reverse swept Team BDS.

MAD Lions is usually behind in the early game even in the matches they win, sometimes even until the 25-minute mark. They can spend entire games in a gold deficit and still win them due to clutch plays in the later stages of the game.

They try to make leads in the early game by fighting constantly akin to LPL teams, but they often fail to find engages that give them an advantage – or that they can win. Their Summer K/D is 0.82, while in the Season Finals, they had a 0.89 number, which is bad even by LEC standards. Their objective control is also lacking, which makes them very exploitable to teams from the Korean and Chinese championships.

The late game is also a bit of a focal point for them. While they improved in the Season Finals, they still had a bad late game thanks to Elyoya and Chasy getting behind in the earlier stages of the game. Outside of the five players, only Hyli manages to stay afloat in terms of stats.

What MAD Lions lack in terms of numbers, they make up in team skill: they are a great teamfighting team with Chasy and Elyoya leading the charge and Carzzy providing the damage. They are also all capable of carrying a game, but do so much less frequently than G2 Esports.

Carzzy has outstanding damage numbers even in terms of Worlds teams, in spite of Elyoya paying little attention to him. He uses his resources well, as he has a 1.74 DMG/GOLD ratio, which means that he can convert leads into fight or skirmish wins. Even though he has a high damage, sometimes it’s not high enough to carry his teammates – but the Korean bootcamp might levelled them up just in time.

MAD Lions will face Cloud9 on the first day of the 2023 World Championship, which should be a great warmup game for both teams. When the time comes to face the best of the best, Carzzy and his team should be ready to tackle any challenge!