The first split of the year in EMEA’s professional League of Legends league has G2 and KOI seen as the strong favorites coming into the competition.
Pinnacle‘s odds for both teams are tied at 3.23. Fnatic meanwhile trails close by as the third most-favored squad with odds at 4.40.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: January 6th, 8:00 P.M. (EST)
G2 revamped their roster with BrokenBlade, who joined just last year becoming their second-longest tenured player. The team’s top laner is second to Caps, who has played under the G2 banner since 2018 and is one of the most successful players in all of Europe both individually and as a team. Caps will be manning the middle lane. They will be joined by Mikyx, who returned after a very brief stint with Excel Esports. Similar to Caps, he has played with G2 since 2018 but had an 11-month break from the team.
KOI merged with Rogue and took their slot in the LEC league. Despite the name organizational changes, the team maintained four of the five Rogue players with the only new face being Szygenda. The 21-year-old Danish top laner has been signed from Vitality.Bee, the academy team of France-based organization Vitality.
Rogue was the most successful team during the 2022 World Championship from the Western Hemisphere. While LCK and LPL teams usually reign superior during the biggest LOL stage, Rogue made it past the group stages as the only non-LCK or LPL team. However during the knockout stage, JD Gaming gave them a beating in a quick 3-0 sweep. Their 5th-8th placement is a notch higher than their 2021 finish where they placed at 9th-11th.
Meanwhile, Fnatic changed their bottom lane setup completely with Swedish Rekkles and Portuguese Rhuckz coming in to replace Upset and Hylissang. The team felt the need to move some pieces after a disappointing World Championship performance. They had the toughest group though with teams like Edward Gaming, T1, and Cloud9 among the mix. LEC Winter will be the first time they’ll test this bottom lane duo and will of course look to shake things up.
The winter split is the newest addition of LEC’s format, which will now consist of three instead of the previous two splits. LEC also expanded into the entirety of EMEA rather than just focusing on Europe. The new format also makes way for more best-of-threes rather than the norm of overloaded best-of-ones.
Who will adapt to these changes and win the very first LEC Winter?
