LEC reigning champions break slump to advance into group stage
After a controversial start to their campaign, KOI has managed to lock in 1 of the 2 remaining spots for the LEC Winter Split Group Stage, winning convincingly versus Astralis. The 2 teams went head to head on the last day of the regular season looking to earn a remaining spot in the group stage. After the LEC format changes, not being top 8 by the end of the shorter regular season means that you are out of title contention right away, this makes every week game count more than in previous splits.
After slowly but steadily gathering resources and gold in the early game, KOI started to push their advantage and ultimately demolished their opponents during team fights, just a couple of fights were enough to get the win this time around. Right at the 30-minute mark, KOI was around 10,000 gold as a team on top of Astralis, and soon after taking the Baron buff, they started tearing down every structure from their opponent’s base.
Is fair to say that nobody expected KOI to be this shaky entering the 2023 season, especially being the current defending champions, but some pieces from the original championship roster were changed. It is usual for teams to take a while to click with new members, and KOI felt a lack of synergy plus lapses of un-responsiveness within the rift were the reasons to their stumbles throughout the regular season. Last summer in Malmö KOI (at the time known as Rogue), were THE most synergized team in the LEC, winning the finals on the back of great teamwork-focused compositions. Of course right after winning a big title, some members might not play with the same passion as before, in fact, KOI’s top laner Szygenda stated in a post game interview that at the beginning of the regular season, the team seemed a bit too “complacent”.
Your Group Stage schedule 🗓️
Sat, Feb 11
6pm CET – @TeamVitality vs @TeamHeretics
~8pm CET – @SKGaming vs @KOISun, Feb 12
6pm CET – @MADLions_EN vs @AstralisLoL
~8pm CET – @G2League vs @TeamBDSMon, Feb 13
6pm CET – Group A Winners Match
~8pm CET – Group B Winners Match https://t.co/K6k8MoDXxw— LEC (@LEC) February 6, 2023
The 2022 Summer Split winners were playing “extremely bad” compared to last season in the first set of scrims the team had with their brand new top laner, but according to Szygenda, the team has found a middle ground and will continue to improve going into the later stages of the season.
Other members from the original squad have yet to play to their known peak level, with mid-laner Larssen stumbling mainly in the laning phase, while jungler Malrang does not seem as aggressive in the early game compared to 2022.
As for Astralis, their post-season campaign is not all over yet, as they might have the chance to play a tiebreaker game t against Fnatic, if the latter manages to take a victory against SK Gaming.
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