In an unprecedented 0-3 defeat, G2 Esports were denied their tenth LEC title by first-time champions Rogue — but they’re looking for redemption at the 2022 World Championship.
In one of the biggest upsets in competitive League of Legends this year, G2 Esports have lost 3-0 in the LEC finals to Rogue.
With LEC analyst predictions going in the favor of G2 Esports, the crowd at the Malmö arena felt fully on their side. But the tides quickly turned as Rogue took hold of the series and never let go, leaving G2 in the dust with a 3-0 and dealing mid laner Rasmus ‘caPs’ Winther his first-ever finals loss.
In the post-game press conference, G2’s post-loss despondency was tempered by a look ahead to Worlds 2022, where they’ll attend as the LEC’s second seed and qualify straight into the group stage.
Disappointment for rookies and veterans alike
G2’s roster is the perfect mix of rookie talent and veteran level-headedness. But loss stings just as badly no matter how long you’ve been playing.
Mid laner caPs took his first-ever finals loss hard, explaining that “it feels weird that we have to play so soon after a bad performance”.
“I just feel a bit out of place, I guess. And I’m just hoping that a few days of resetting will help, and that we can get back to the grind and figure out what to do show up at Worlds and be back to our usual selves.”
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Rookie AD Carry Viktor ‘Flakked’ Lirola also took the loss hard — but despite the 3-0, the “hype” of the arena and the G2 fan chants wasn’t lost on him.
we played really bad as a team and individually today 🙁 sorry to everyone and thanks for cheering for us and respect to Rogue they were the better team See you guys at worlds love you and sorry again ❤️
— flakkkk (@Flakked_LoL) September 11, 2022
“I’ve never played in a big arena before, and I don’t think I was particularly nervous. I actually felt pretty comfortable. And a lot of the crowd was supporting us as well, but even though I felt really comfortable we just didn’t perform as a team.”
The comeback begins now
Immediately after the finals loss, coach Dylan Falco’s game plan for the team’s Worlds bootcamp was clear.
“When we go to Worlds, it’s a completely new patch,” he explained. “We’ll time travel like three patches, and I know Riot always like to greatly change the meta ahead of Worlds.”
“So our focus and effort now is going to go into research for the new patch. When we come into our Worlds prep, we want to have a very good idea of what we think might be strong, and what sort of draft patterns and meta we want to play.”
But that’s only stage one of the process. After those patterns and meta are established, it’s a lengthy process of iteration and practise to get the draft down to a science.