They became a fan favourite in 2023, but how will the Team Heretics LEC 2024 squad fare in the new season?
The 2024 LEC Season is just around the corner, kicking off on January 13th! While all the rosters have been confirmed, officially, only a few teams have locked in their players for the next split. Among them is Team Heretics, one of the newest orgs to join the EMEA Championship – who upgraded their team quite a bit compared to last year.
Team Heretics in 2023
The Spanish organization joined the LEC after winning EMEA Masters 2022 Summer, defeating Team BDS Academy 3-2 in the finals. They signed Evi, Jankos, Ruby and Mersa, while promoting Jackspektra, one of the most hyped ADCs of the ERL level.
Even though they had a good roster, they barely made it out of the LEC Winter 2023 Season due to Jack and Ruby underperforming but waited to swap the players out until the Spring Split – where they finished second-to-last.
However, after signing Vetheo and Flakked to the mid- and botlane respectively, the team massively improved. Jankos didn’t have to carry every game, and Heretics made it to the LEC Playoffs for the first time in the year. While they finished 4th and missed Worlds in a heartbreaking game, it was a massive improvement from their Winter and Spring performances.
Team Heretics 2024 Roster
- Top: Martin “Wunder” Nordahl Hansem
- Jungle: Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski
- Mid: Luka “Perkz” Perkovic
- ADC: Victor “Flakked” Lirola
- Support: Norman “Kaiser” Kaiser
Team Heretics Wants to Build on Success
While Evi, Vetheo and Mersa improved a lot in the 2023 Season, Team Heretics still decided to let them go – and for good reason. Vetheo has been signed by Team Vitality, Evi went back to Japan to play for Fukuoka SoftBank HAWKS, and Mersa is taking a split off due to not being able to find an LEC team.
Even though it’s sad to see Mersa go, even the Greek player admitted he could’ve done more. While he made a good duo with Flakked, he was a bit invisible before the Spanish ADC joined the team. He has potential though, so hopefully, he can return to the LEC or at least find a new home in an ERL team.
Team Heretics or G3?
The new roster of Team Heretics has 4 out of 5 players that played for G2 Esports in the past: Wunder, Jankos and Perkz were part of the golden dynasty, making it to the Worlds finals back in 2019 – where they were defeated 0-3 by FunPlus Phoenix, continuing the legacy of Fnatic, who lost the Grand Finals in 2018.
Flakked played for G2 Esports after the org had the worst year since it’s inception. After signing Rekkles and failing to qualify for the World Championship, they revamped their roster with BrokenBlade and a rookie botlane. However, Flakked and Targamas only lasted a year when G2 wanted to bank on more experienced players. After spending half a season in the ERL’s, Flakked returned and became one of the best botlaners in the league, running circles around talents such as Crownie, Comp and Upset.
The only player that never played for G2 is Kaiser, but he was the member of the MAD Lions that took the crown from them in 2021 – twice. After a horrible year with Team Vitality, the German support deserves a break, and an ADC that can enable him instead of requiring him to sit around botlane.
Team Heretics LEC 2024 Predictions
Still, the criticism aimed at Team Heretics is somewhat valid – they really ran another team back with the topside of their map. Second chances are a signature for the Spanish team anyways. If Wunder, Perkz and Kaiser can bounce back the same way Jankos and Flakked did, they could become a top contender.
Wunder already showed that he’s on the brink of resurrection when he had to sub in for Fnatic when their main toplaner Oscarinin suffered a hand injury and had to take some time off.
Perkz had some incredibly poor performances around the end of the 2023 season, but at the beginning of the year, Team Vitality did fine, even making it to the third place of the 2023 LEC Spring Playoffs. He also played alongside Kaiser, and if Team Heretics signed the ex-LEC champions together, that should suggest that it was not Kaiser’s fault that VIT struggled.
However, the team could have one big issue: too many big names in one team is never good. The main carry was Flakked when Heretics was the most successful, even though Vetheo and Jankos showed up even this Summer. Perkz has been known for being a central member of any team he was a part of, but if they can share the workload with Flakked, there shouldn’t be an issue.
Team Heretics looks like on of the most interesting teams of the 2024 LEC, which could either rise or fail horribly – hopefully the former happens instead of the latter.
