Every team in the LEC has now played a total of nine games in the span of four weeks. G2 Esports, which began the season at the top of the standings and the power rankings following their signing of Rekkles over the offseason, have continued to hold onto a dominant position, but most of the other teams in the LEC are not far behind.
Rogue is currently tied with G2, sporting a 7-2 record. G2 has lost to only Schalke 04 and Fnatic this split, while Rogue dropped games to G2 and Schalke. Since the split is half over, every team has faced every other team, which makes it somewhat easier to compare the different teams who are similar in standings.
In total, there are six teams in the LEC with positive records, so with five or more wins, and a seventh is 4-5. While the standings have diversified somewhat since the first week of the spring split, the divide between top six to seven and bottom three to four is very, very clear.
Vitality sits in the 10th slot currently, with just one win over an also-struggling Misfits Gaming in week one. Astralis and Misfits round out the bottom three, with 2-7 and 3-6 records respectively. The teams weren’t expected to be the best but those are still very bad records and they’re going to have to perform a Schalke-esque miracle to even have a chance at making it to playoffs and putting on a decent split.
Speaking of Schalke, perhaps the best word for the team is inconsistent. Schalke is the only team which has beaten both Rogue and G2 this split, a big accomplishment. However, they’ve also lost games to Astralis, Excel, MAD Lions, and Fnatic.
Ignoring the Astralis loss, the other three are all teams that are at about the same place in the standings as Schalke, who are 5-4. MAD and Excel are also 5-4, while Fnatic sits at 6-3. While beating the top teams is a good sign for Schalke, losing to all of the teams with whom they are at a similar ranking.
That inconsistency makes Schalke a team that is hard to judge. On a good day they can beat G2 or Rogue, which would make them a top three team. On a bad one, I’m not entirely clear on whether or not they can even look dominant over the likes of Astralis and Vitality. To me, Schalke is a team that plays to the level of their opponent, which … can be a good sign if you’re a lower seed, but isn’t good if you’re playing teams who should be lower than you.
This week, Schalke will be taking on G2 and SK Gaming, which should serve as a good test for all three of those teams. If Schalke can beat both G2 and SK, it would signal an ability to beat other 5-4 to 4-5 teams that they haven’t really demonstrated this split, while showing a continuation of their own ability to beat top teams.
On the other hand, if Schalke loses, those wins over Rogue and G2 are going to look more and more like unreplicable flukes, and there will need to be a new challenger for the third seed heading into the back half of the split.
Meanwhile, G2 and Rogue are looking to continue doing what they’ve done for the whole split so far: look a tier above all of the other teams while seemingly on a collision course. They don’t play again till week seven, in a game that could easily determine which of them is the top team of the split.
