LEC Playoffs: SK Faulters as Splyce Advance to Face Fnatic

The day after the League of Legends European Championship kicked off with a stellar fight between Team Vitality and Fnatic, round one came to a quick close with the head-to-head match-up of Splyce versus SK Gaming.

With a roster full of rookies, the upstart SK Gaming made so many headlines heading into the playoffs. SK Gaming even managed to destroy a scary looking Team Vitality in the league’s fastest victory ever. But would they be able to live up to the expectations set in the final weeks of the Spring Split?

Splyce, however, has a lot of proof that they are a team to be relied upon. They play a very steady, defense-first style of League, and their battle against the fiery young-guns definitely played out as many analysts predicted.

Baron Von Trapp

While both teams seemingly entered this match-up very calm and stoic, there is no doubt that playoff rookies on the SK roster had some nerves. The problem is, that at the 25-minute mark, the guys from SK Gaming hadn’t been able to obtain a sense of comfort or calm.

The bot-lane was almost a non-factor across the board in Game 1, although we did get to see our first patch 9.6 buffed Xayah. Eventually, the Ezreal pick for Crownshot eventually grew pretty powerful, but he played a large role in just a few late-game fights.

In the first instance of these two fairly different styled teams going head-to-head in the playoffs, it was the jungle match-up, as predicted, that made the most impact. As for the swing of the game, it was almost all in Splyce’s favor heading into a well deserved 30 minute Baron, but a surprise contest from SK caught them off guard. 

Coming out of the Baron turnaround 4-0 in kills, SK took the minimal snowball, and rolled it down mid-lane and almost took the Splyce inhibitor in a single push. After securing a second Baron just a few minutes later, SK got on their roll and unrelentingly kept up the pressure until it led to the toppling of their enemy’s inhibitor. 

SK Quivers

After both teams got a good feeling for one another in Game 1, the second adventure on the rift went a lot like the first. Though, thanks to an early-game and far poke team composition coming out of the draft, SK Gaming didn’t have the legs they needed after the 30-minute mark. 

With a Kennan top and Skarner roaming the jungle, Splyce was able to pick off SK Gaming in small chunks throughout the game. A small glimmer of hope for SK was extinguished around the 32-minute mark where an attempted disrupt on a Baron turned into an almost full team wipe from Splyce. The young-guns of SK couldn’t recover, though they slowed the steamroll a bit, and eventually lost game 2. 

A large portion of the first two game’s outcomes has to do with the pick and ban phase of the head-to-head. With Crownshots' return to Ashe looking prolific in Game 2, the archer just isn’t enough of a team carry to take SK to a victory lap. Moving forward onto Game 3 and beyond, it was very interesting to see what these two teams did in the draft.

Wet Noodles

Speaking of draft magic, Game 3 saw Splyce pull out the bot-lane carry Vel’Koz and an extremely punishing total team comp. However, it was truly Vizicsacsi on Jayce that made the match a fun one to watch. With his 2/0/0 Jayce at the 15-minute mark, no one seemed to be able to kill him. Even in multiple 1v2’s, Csacsi was able to escape with a flip and a gate, and he’d just poof away. Normally a very sloppy team in the mid-game, Splyce had everything going their way around the 20-minute mark. Those noodly arms of Vel’Koz were too dangerous for SK to push up on, and Jayce was slippery. 

In the end, the push skill of the team composition put together by Splyce was too much, and the win was secured by simply whittling away at SK’s base over time. Team wet noodle looked pretty unstoppable in the third game of the match-up.

SK Gaming Unmade 

In the head-to-head’s first match point game, both teams stacked up with huge team-fight compositions, with Shen and Vayne plucked for the Splyce side, and Rek'Sai and Hecarim taken for SK. With two bullying line-ups it was a bloodbath from the get-go.

At the mid-game stage, however, the casters took notice of a very strange Rek’Sai build coming out of the recent fan-favorite jungler Selfmade. The team-leader built up an Infinity Blade on his dive ganker, and everyone was dumbfounded. Selfmade would have been god-tier if it paid off. But that’s a big if.

It’s fitting then, that the team Selfmade has managed to lead into the playoffs, falls on the back of an extremely lackluster performance from him. Live by the self, die by the self. On the other side of the rift, Splyce didn’t have too much trouble closing out the game once they survived past the 30-minute mark. A few lost team fights from the snakes may have scared fans for a moment, but the team bounced back, taking the game.

Splyce Advance

Winning out over the recently hot SK Gaming by a score of 3-1, the boys from Splyce may play a pretty boring game of League of Legends, but they are the ones to advance on to the second round of the LEC Spring Split Playoffs.

Up next, they have to make their way through one of the best looking Fnatic teams in League of Legends history. That match will take place next Friday, April 5th, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. After that, the league-leading G2 Esports will face off against Origen for a straight shot to the Playoff finals, while the losers of that match will face-off against the winner of the Splyce versus Fnatic match.

Check out our guide to watching the LEC Playoff for all the game days and match schedules.