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EU LCS: Vitality brings the heat, Fnatic defeat FC Schalke 04

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G2 Esports closed out Saturday's European League Championship Series slate with a win over Splyce in Berlin.

G2 (2-0) decided to place the majority of its resources in the hands of mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perković on Kai'Sa. Adapting well to the current patch, G2 also put "Jungler" Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski into a supportive role on Braum, shifting his job from frequent ganks to occasional roams while facilitating Perkz's success. Splyce (0-2) had a slightly different idea when it came to drafting, opting for a much more dive heavy composition with the damage spread out across multiple members of the team.

During the early game, SPY struggled to use its multi-pronged offense as the carries had not been given enough time to scale up. On the flipside, G2 pushed the pace of the game early, finding success almost immediately. Picking up kills and piling on gold for Jankos, who set an EU LCS record with over 300 CS (creep score) at 20 minutes, G2 had a strong hold of the game. Despite these kills, though, SPY remained even in gold, picking up objectives with the composition's heft amounts of wave clear.

When it came to teamfighting, both teams found limited success, with the outcome largely coming down to coordination and engagements. With both teams neck and neck in these departments, the game was at a near stalemate until G2 pulled the trigger to pick up a 22-minute Baron. Although G2 couldn't close the game with the buff, G2 used Baron effectively, picking up a sizeable gold lead and taking control of the map.

The lead paid dividends as G2 was able to methodically take down the enemy structures. Perkz was extremely farmed, much more so than anyone on Splyce, and ripped through Splyce with ease. After some patience, G2 claimed a 33-minute teamfight victory, in which Perkz found a quadra kill, and took out Splyce's Nexus, claiming a 2-0 start to the Summer split as the team looks to recapture the team's former glory atop the EU LCS.

G2 next faces FC Schalke 04 at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, while Splyce faces Misfits Gaming at 4 p.m. ET later that day.

Fnatic 1-0 FC Schalke 04

Fnatic took down FC Schalke 04 in bizarre circumstances during the European League Championship Series on Saturday. With the victory, Fnatic improves its record to 1-1 for the week while simultaneously spoiling FC Schalke 04's chances at a 2-0 week.

Fnatic entered the game against FC Schalke 04 with an unexpected draft that seemed to fall flat on its face. Opting to place star AD Carry player Martin "Rekkles" Larsson on Karma, who finished with under 1,000 damage dealt and slightly less than his jungle Nunu, in order to support mid laner Rasmus "Caps" Winther's smite Kai'Sa, Fnatic decided to funnel all resources to a single member. The strategy was high risk, high reward, and unfortunately, the risk did not pay off at the start.

S04 went for a much more standard composition, taking a more conservative approach to the game. This style of play was successful for Schalke, picking up multiple early kills and shutting down FNC's early game plans.

After 15 minutes elapsed, it seemed as though S04 had all but secured the victory. FNC's composition of multiple supports and one extreme hyper carry had all but failed, and Fnatic was on its last legs. Thankfully, the veteran experience on the team allowed the squad to persevere throughout the early game. Utilizing the team's many buffs for Caps, FNC claimed a 20-minute baron to start an impressive comeback.

After claiming the Baron, it marched up the middle lane and quickly found kills onto enemy carries. With the fed Kai'Sa in tow, Fnatic had no problem putting its foot down, using Caps' hyper carry to shred through the enemy lines and nearly take out Schalke's structures. Try as it might, S04 could not defend its base, resulting in a heartbreaking 24-minute defeat.

FC Schalke 04 will take on G2 Esports at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, followed by Fnatic taking on H2k at 3 p.m. ET that day.

Vitality 1-0 Giants

Vitality brought the heat in a quick 28-minute victory over Giants on Saturday in the European League Championship Series.

Although many teams have had a tough time utilizing non-traditional bottom lanes, Vitality (2-0) looked like it put in the necessary practice to master the unorthodox meta. On the other hand, Giants Gaming's (1-1) traditional bottom lane draft did not pay dividends. Opting for an Ezreal/Fiddlesticks combo, Giants struggled to deal with the aggression of the VIT duo lane of Lux and Pyke. An early kill for support Jakub "Jactroll" Skurzyńsk's Pyke ended up being just the start Vitality needed to quickly run away with the game. With an impressive combo of crowd control coming out of Jactroll and his "AD Carry" Amadeu "Attila" Carvalho on Lux, the duo was able to annihilate any champion that was caught in either of the two players' spells.

As the bottom lane of VIT surged ahead, GIA's saving grace seemed to be mid laner Felix "Betsy" Edling on Lulu. After picking up a solo kill in lane early on, it seemed as though he could provide his team the waveclear it needed to stay in the game until it could find an opening. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as VIT used its lead to roam across the map as a pack, finding picks left and right to grow its gold lead. Simultaneously, the team focused on the macro play, taking down objectives early on that further pushed VIT ahead.

Try as GIA might, the team could not find the necessary coordination to bring itself back from a rather large early deficit. Giants continued to force unnecessary fights after finding its own key members caught out time and again. By the time GIA found a way to make a positive impact, the game was all but over.

Giants take on the Unicorns of Love at 12 p.m. ET on Friday, followed by Vitality facing ROCCAT at 1 p.m. ET the same day.

Misfits 1-0 Unicorns of Love

Misfits decimated Unicorns of Love, claiming a 23-minute victory on Saturday in the European League Championship series.

From the very start, it was clear that Misfits had a handle on the meta, picking champions that fit the new metagame. Unicorns of Love, meanwhile, put all its eggs in one basket, opting for a supportive bottom lane and a carry mid laner.

From the jump, Misfits brought the heat, moving across the map in perfect harmony as the squad isolated members of the enemy team. UoL seemed to have no response, allowing Misfits to earn itself a 2,000-gold lead before 10 minutes had elapsed. As star bottom laner Steven "Hans Sama" Liv made short work of the enemy team with Varus, the remainder of Misfits moved around him, facilitating his ability to shred the enemy team at every stage of the game. Once ahead, Misfits had a field day, moving around the map with ease with a variety of mobile champions. The team's mid laner Chres "Sencux" Laursen played the map beautifully on Aurelion Sol, handing kills over to Hans Sama and continually punishing caught out enemy members.

Throughout the onslaught, UoL seemed completely lost and unable to adapt. The only lesson the team seemed to take away from the early game was that aggression was paying off for the enemy team. As a result, the squad made a terrible decision to try and up its own aggression despite being down several thousand gold. This resulted in teamfight after teamfight going the way of Misfits, with the majority of UoL doing little more than dying. With no way of standing up in teamfights, UoL was completely pushed around in the sub-25-minute loss.

Unicorns will look to bounce back at noon ET next Friday against the Vodafone Giants, while Misfits hope to continue their winning streak against Splyce later that day at 4 p.m. ET.

ROCCAT 1-0 H2k

ROCCAT started off the second day of the European League Championship Series summer split with a win over H2k Gaming.

At first glance, one could attribute ROCCAT's victory to a greater acceptance of the volatile metagame. While H2k selected more or less a traditional team composition (albeit with some picks like Nocturne and Fiddlesticks) ROCCAT picked a triple ability-power comp, sending AD carry Martin "HeaQ" Kordmaa into the bottom lane with Ziggs. However, it was ROCCAT's initiative that ultimately granted the victory.

It all started around the six-minute mark, with H2k top laner Lennart "Smittyj" Warkus' Cho'Gath stepping up too far and taking too much free damage from Kim "Profit" Jun-hyung's Vladimir, resulting in a solo kill. Simultaneously, multiple members of H2k made similar mistakes in the bottom-side river, and mid laner Marcin "Selfie" Wolski also gave up a death on Lulu.

From there on out, it was all ROCCAT, all the time. Between support Tore "Norskeren" Hoel Eilertsen's Pyke, and mid laner Jin "Blanc" Seong-min's Lissandra, ROCCAT had an abundance of long-range engage and pick potential -- and with damage coming out from all five members, they had more than enough follow-up. Smittyj continued to die under various turrets, and soon ROCCAT had huge leads in every category.

The one time H2k made an effort to initiate, it lost the fight 1-for-3, and only avoided disaster by taking down ROCCAT's jungler. He respawned, however, and ROCCAT took Baron and a clean ace at 25 minutes, ending the game shortly after with the buff still active.

As with most games on the current patch, this was a quick and decisive one. ROCCAT will be happy not to start out 0-2, and will look forward to its match with Team Vitality at 11 a.m. ET on Friday. Later that day, H2k will look for its first win against Fnatic at 1 p.m. ET.

--Brendan Hickey

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