This article is part of our LoL Season Splits series.
The end of the EULCS Spring season is upon us at last, and what a split it has been. For the second consecutive split we've seen a newly-ascended team prove to be a dominant force in the league thanks to G2's convincing imitation of Origen's successes from last year. The split has also seen two-thirds of the triumvirate of top teams from last year see their fortunes change dramatically, as both Origen and Fnatic found themselves on the bottom end of the playoff standings after disappointing performances from their revamped rosters. H2K looks to claim the title after both of their rivals have fallen. The Unicorns of Love are intent on proving that they can still make the magic they were so famous for with more than half of their original roster now elsewhere.
For all these teams, this is the time when their stories will come to a head. Everyone here has a dream to bring to life, and without a true super team like 2015 Fnatic to stamp those dreams out , there's no telling how these playoffs will end. Most of the teams in the top six share mixed records with each other, or else hold head-to-head leads only on the back of very close games. Teams of up-and-coming rookies will face off against some of the most seasoned players in Europe for both the championship title and the honor of representing Europe at the Mid Season Invitational.
That these playoffs will be a close thing is widely acknowledged, but that's not to say that there aren't definite favorites and longshots amongst the teams. In order to better predict the results of this championship, we first have to take a look at those participating in it. In the first part of this two-part series, we'll focus on the longshots and wildcards to claim the title.
Longshots:
Fnatic
This split has seen Fnatic fall from grace harder than any imagined possible. In a single split they've gone from easy favorites to incredible longshots. While their individual players are all still solid to excellent, they rarely seem to all hit their peak in the same game. Spirit in particular is prone to performances that swing from "World Champion" to "Challenger Series Washout". To make matters worse, their shotcalling has been a consistent weak point throughout the split, resulting in games that feature the five of them running about the Rift with no clear goal while slowly losing the game.
IEM Katowice, though, debuted a Fnatic that was unlike any we had seen this split. Their march to the finals left many favorites defeated in their wake, including both of the LPL's top teams. The team that returned to Europe, though, seemed to be devoid of the fire they had shown in Katowice. How deep Fnatic make it in the playoffs will depend entirely upon which of their two incarnations decides to attend.
In order to take the event, Fnatic will have to bounce back from one of the organization's very rare 0-2 weeks in time to take down Vitality, a team they've already failed to defeat in the regular season. Supposing they manage to accomplish that, they still have to overcome both G2 and H2K in order to take the championship, an extraordinarily tall order for the team that returned deflated from Katowice. Still, with weeks of preparation there's no telling what Fnatic's famously-skilled coaching staff will be able to come up with. We may be in for a surprise after all.
Unicorns of Love
The road to the playoffs is a long and uncertain one for the EULCS' perennial fan-favorite team. Replacing Rudy with Loulex has proven to be a disastrous short-term mistake, one that has transformed the team from a true playoff threat to one that was suddenly dropping games to the weakest teams in the league. Their 2-4 run since Loulex has joined the team has been characterized by an utter lack of effective jungle pressure, something that Rudy and his predecessors always brought in spades, despite their other weaknesses.
To make matters worse, Unicorns will start the event by facing off against Origen, a team that they have yet to take a game off despite the early-split struggles that Origen have had. WIth Origen on a four-game win streak ever since IEM Katowice, it's hard to consider Unicorns anything but an underdog, especially if xPeke take the Rift. Even if they do manage to take down the Spanish team, they'll next face H2K, a team with whom they have a mixed record. While they did manage to take H2K down in the last week of the regular split, it was more due to H2K's failures than Unicorn's successes and H2k is a team that is known for its formidable play in longer serieses. With such an imposing schedule in front of them, fans of the Unicorns shouldn't be surprised if they don't accomplish much in this post-season.
That being said, this is the Unicorns of Love we're talking about. No team has earned a reputation for utterly defying the odds as well as they have and underestimating them has proven to be a lethal mistake in the past. The question will be whether Hylissang and Viziscaci alone will be enough to rekindle the magic that the Unicorns are so beloved for.
Wildcards:
Origen
Three weeks ago Origen would have instantly been cast into the longshot category without a second thought or a lengthy explanation. After getting completely dismantled by Fnatic in the first game of the split, it was obvious that in losing their captain, xPeke, Origen has lost an integral part of their trademark calculated aggression. For the first two-thirds of the 2016 season, Origen looked like a team in a haze, lost and disoriented as if on that odd border between waking and dreaming.
If the beginning of the split was a lucid dream for Origen, IEM Katowice would prove to be the bullhorn that roused them at last. While their performance at IEM was unremarkable, the important result was that their mid laner, PowerOfEvil, fell ill at the event, forcing xPeke to once again take to the Rift. To call the difference staggering would be an understatement: it was as if an entirely different team had come to play. We had been used to a bumbling and ineffective Origen throughout all of 2016. Instead both Team ROCCAT and Unicorns of Love found themselves blown off the Rift by what seemed to be the dominant team 2015 had introduced us to. With the return of xPeke the team was decisive and efficient, easily sealing the last four games of the split including their rematch against Fnatic.
For Origen, then, the question is not one of seeding or matchups. If the Origen of 2015 was to take to the Rift there isn't a team in the current EU lineup that could resist them. The question is instead an internal one: can PowerOfEvil learn to impact the Rift in the same way as his predecessor, or will xPeke himself return to the Rift to lead his team to victory? If the answer to either of these questions proves to be a yes, there's no telling how far this roster can go. If not, they'll likely struggle even against the equally beset Unicorns
