Orange and Gold: LEC 2023 Season Finals Lower Bracket Finals Preview

The LEC 2023 Season Finals is reaching its climax with the Lower Bracket Finals. With only three teams remaining, MAD Lions and Fnatic will face off in the Lower Finals for a chance at the top team in Europe: G2.

Fighting for Something More

As stated by Riot, the LEC Season Finals determines the three LEC teams heading to Worlds 2023. Technically, there may be a fourth, however, that remains to be determined by the Worlds Qualifying Series. In that, the 4th seeds from both the LEC and the LCS (Team BDS and Golden Guardians), will face off in a Bo5 to determine the final team making it to Worlds 2023.

Meanwhile, the top three teams, MAD Lions, Fnatic, and G2, have already qualified for Worlds 2023. Meaning, the following two Season Finals series, the Lower Finals and Grand Finals, will solely serve to determine their seeding heading into the biggest League of Legends tournament.

Moreover, the pride of these three historic organizations, all of whom at one point or another, have dominated the European landscape, will be settled, here and now.

Terms of the Battle and Favored Weapons

The Lower Finals will be a Bo5 series, to be held on the 9th of September at 5.00pm BST. The winner of the series will proceed to the Grand Finals, where G2 awaits.

MAD Lions come into the series with a 40% winrate across this season, having only defeated G2 and XL (3 times for the latter). They have a tendency for late game compositions, relying heavily on “Nisqy” on the Azir or LeBlanc to scale.

Moreover, MAD Lions jungler “Elyoya” has been utilized heavily as a utility jungler, enabling his laners to get ahead. He has been prioritizing picks such as Ivern, Sejuani, Poppy, Vi, and Jarvan IV.  They have also leaned towards giving top laner “Chasy” more options, with more flexible picks such as Camille, Poppy, Rumble, and Jax.

This is in stark contrast with Fnatic, who prefer to give top laner “Wunder” a safer lane, on picks like Renekton and Ornn. Jungler “Razork” is also given a similar role of utility jungler, utilizing the Ivern pick to get his team ahead.

The biggest differential comes in the midlane, where “Humanoid” has been given more leeway to play more aggressive picks like Jayce and Tristana. This allowed Fnatic to take a faster mid lane tempo and potentially snowball their win conditions earlier than MAD Lions.

Fnatic come into the series with a 64% winrate, having defeated Team BDS (twice) and XL (thrice).

Predictions for the Series

Overall, according to the damage charts on gol.gg, MAD Lions have a large reliance on AD Carry “Carzzy” to carry fights, with 33% of the team’s damage in recent series. This is in contrast to Fnatic, whose biggest damage dealer is in fact “Humanoid”, with 31%. This extension of threats from Fnatic allows them to be more successful in teamfights, with more targets to focus down for enemy teams in any given crucial fight.

This lends the advantage to Fnatic in the series. A combination of greater flexibility on the team compositions and picks, along with greater damage distribution, leads to the conclusion that Fnatic will likely come away with the victory.

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Credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games