League Analysis — Fnatic vs G2 Esports — LEC Week 3
7 FEBRUARY 2021 — by League Analyst
A new chapter in the rivalry
It’s day two of the third week in the LEC and it’s finally time for G2 vs Fnatic. The legendary rivalry has been dialed up even further for this split after Rekkles left for G2, and today we’ll get to see the effect of that move. The controversial roster move also gave birth to an absolute banger: Reckless with my Heart.
Although the match today is very hyped up, it’s important to not overblow it. It’s still week three and regardless of who wins and loses, it’s still a long time left for both teams to improve. That being said, it’s very hard to not be exited for today. Two legendary teams who are entering new eras are facing of on the rift and a victory here would be a huge statement.
Taking into consideration the two teams in question, I dare say it wont be a clean and calculated game. Today it’s all about winning and proving to the fans that your team is superior, that’s all there is to it. The rivalry currently is in favor of G2 with a 18–16 game record against Fnatic. Will that trend continue or will Fnatic rise up to the challenge?
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 — Senna
The Senna ban is somewhat unexpected as it is one of many viable ADC’s in the meta. Probably a pick targeting Rekkles specifically.
Ban 2 — Twisted Fate
Twisted Fate remains as one of the most banned champions due to obvious reasons.
Ban 3 — Udyr
G2 has not played Udyr so far in the split but the champion has a lot upsides as one of the best stat check champions in the game.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 — Olaf
A must ban on red side until the nerfs hit next patch.
Ban 2 — Pantheon
Another champion that has seen a lot of bans so far in the split. Should also be heavily affected by the Goredrinker nerfs so might decrease in priority next week.
Ban 3 — Renekton
One more Goredrinker abuser on the ban list. Renekton is also indirectly hit next patch by the Sterak’s Gage nerfs so he might be picked up less going forward.
Picks:
B1 Pick — Taliyah
With a lot of junglers being taken of the board it makes sense that Taliyah gets picked up on first rotation as one of the premium junglers.
R1 Pick — Kai’Sa
One of the high prio adc’s picked up by G2.
R2 Pick — Lillia
With almost all junglers taken, Jankos doesn’t really have many viable options left besides Lillia/Graves/Nidalee. This is pretty basic so far into the draft.
B2 Pick — Thresh
So the Thesh finally makes it through the ban phase and gets picked up, probably to be paired with Aphelios.
B3 Pick — Aphelios
The Thresh Aphelios is the combo that we were expecting here as they compliment each other very well.
R3 Pick — Camille
The Camille pickup makes a lot of sense here since Fnatic cannot counter with Jax as it doesn’t fit with the teamfight comp that they are forming. It would also leave them with close to zero frontline, a very big weakness against Camille and Lillia.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 — Blitzcrank
Blitzcrank is one of the main counters to Thresh and can be very obnoxious both in and out of lane.
Ban 5 — Galio
The Galio Camille combo gets banned away. A very good ban considering G2 hasn’t picket a mid or support yet, the two lanes that Galio could go towards.
Red bans:
Ban 4 — Gangplank
I know that Gangplank is good into Camille but I would argue that the ban is pretty pointless for the same reason as the Jax pick earlier mentioned.
Ban 5 — Aatrox
I don’t like the Aatrox ban either here. For Fnatic I would say that either Malphite or Volibear would make much more sense since they both counter Camille and offer Fnatic some frontline.
Picks:
R4 Pick — Alistar
The Alistar is a go to pick in pro play. Here though, Morgana would be such a banger pick. Fnatic is already lacking frontline, making them susceptible to pick champions. It’s also a great lane matchup and should be able to stay somewhat safe against the Fnatic draft.
B4 Pick — Volibear
One of the two tanks who can lane into Camille, makes a lot of sense.
B5 Pick — Azir
Azir is just a good blind champion at the moment but means that Fnatic has a triple AP topside, making it very easy to itemize against.
R5 Pick — Zoe
Zoe comes in as the Azir “counter”, pretty standard.
Pre-game prediction
This draft is very close in my opinion. Fnatic will try to protect Aphelios and stay as grouped as possible. G2 on the other hand has tons of pick with double sleeps and the Camille engage. They will be looking to set up around neutral objectives and use fog of war to catch Fnatic of guard. Personally I prefer the G2 draft but both teams have solid tools to play around.
Key moments
The game started of in favor of G2 with two big misplays from Fnatic. In the toplane Bwipo overfoced a trade with the Camille, who also had a huge minion advantage, making the trade close to unwinnable. On the other side of the map, Hyli got flash pulverized and knocked into the G2 tower, which pretty much is the only possible way to die in the matchup.
Fnatic got a good dive in the toplane a couple of minutes later, denying Camille close to two minion waves of gold and exp and evening up the matchup. The following fights were somewhat messy, two failed dives in a row and a failed hookshot for Wunder, resulting in some unfortunate deaths for both teams.
G2 did a huge blunder at 11:30, posturing all 5 members on the top side of the map, failing a gank on Bwipo and loosing complete control of the map. This resulted in the Fnatic botlane crashing a huge wave into the tower gaining tons of plates and snowballing the gold lead in their favor. In a desperate attempt to get something back, G2 forced mid but Nisqy clutched it out and came out with a 2 for 1 trade.
After that point the game actually slowed down for once, Fnatic calmed down, stacked drakes and scaled into the midgame. After starving out G2 of vision Fnatic sneaked the baron, won the following teamfight and closed out in a pretty clean fashion.
Post game takeaways
Finally we got to see Fnatic calm down and play some good League of Legends, playing to their advantages and not overstaying their welcome. Despite some mistakes in the early game, Fnatic showed some very good signs in terms of communication as they stayed calm and collected, out macro’d G2 and closed out, despite it being such a high pressure game.
This game pretty much proves that Fnatic can be the best team in the league if they don’t run it down. In terms gameplay, this game was very high tier and both teams played on a knife’s edge with Fnatic coming out on top this time around.
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