The first day of the LEC Winter Split saw team reunions, new seasonal announcements.
With the LEC’s electric start, the potential was skyhigh for these pro teams – and so were expectations. While celebrated names in the EMEA found high places on their tierlist, other groups that had disastrous performances in past scrims also got discussed during the day’s pre-show “EUphoria” podcast.
European league matches will now take place from Saturday to Monday among other changes. With context to the current Patch 13.1 meta, win conditions can switch up for even the strongest of the LEC.
The event also came with important updates and announcements. K’Sante and Chemdrake got introduced, while Jax’s kit received major updates. Rod of Ages comes back to Week 1, while Jungler Pets enter the Rift for their first pro-play game of the official EMEA splits. Besides that, the location for 2023’s Season Finals was confirmed for Montpellier, France. Find outt the complete details here.
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2023 #LEC Season Finals will take place in Montpellier Occitanie! pic.twitter.com/kwUnjU9hhC
— LEC (@LEC) January 21, 2023
The main show began on an ecstatic (and quite nostalgic) note. When the time finally came, the 10 biggest LEC teams clashed for the first games of the season – and the first step of the LEC’s journey to Worlds 2023.
Excel vs G2 Esports
The seeding matches began to the lively chants of hyped fans. With their old reliable jungler switched out, G2’s Yike had big shoes to fill. Further, the stunning power players surrounding Excel’s star ADC Patrik was also considerable.
With a quick Lucian-Nami ban, the game swung into action. Early game aggression by Yike and Mikyx broke past the silence, while most of G2 focused on Patrik’s bot lane. Targamas’ first blood was followed with a long pause before the new show continued.
Bloodbaths on both top and bottom lane rocked the show into the midgame. As a consequence, XL ended up having an enormous gold deficit after losing in multiple team clashes. Odoamne’s K’Sante tried his best to pull the score back to a tie against BrokenBlade’s Jax, but to no avail. After the final disadvantaged teamfight on blue side, G2 earned enough kills for a dominating Game 1 victory.
- Teams: XL 0 – 1 G2
- Time: 24:15
- Kills: 11 – 18
- Turrets: 0 – 11
- Gold: 48.9k – 63.4k
- Dragons: 1 – 3
- Barons: 0 – 2
#G2WIN @G2League win the opening match of the #LEC Winter Split! pic.twitter.com/lzC2lzwvkr
— LEC (@LEC) January 21, 2023
KOI vs Team BDS
The b01 series continued with the next teams that went up on the main stage.
Malrang’s crazy Sejuani plays earned KOI the first kill of match 2. After that, the entire early game was a quiet back-and-forth that didn’t see a real difference in score until BDS got a 2 dragon lead in midgame. From there, the stagnant killscore remained tied while KOI destroyed more turrets. The volatility between the two teams finally reached a head at minute 31 when BDS maintained a 2-kill advantage before stealing Baron. Despite this, KOI stacked all their small wins in a drawn-out game to break the enemy nexus.
- Teams: KOI 1 – 0 BDS
- Time: 36:26
- Kills: 10 – 9
- Turrets: 10 – 1
- Gold: 68.7k – 57.1k
- Dragons: 3 – 2
- Barons: 2 – 0
.@KOI defeat @TeamBDS! #LEC pic.twitter.com/VB4AFiTqOA
— LEC (@LEC) January 21, 2023
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