MAD’s 2023 season can be seen as a bittersweet success. The Spanish organization has been the only one to grab a trophy inside G2’s dominant 2023, however, the potential shown by the roster in Spring couldn’t take its true shape in either Summer or at Worlds.

A 2023 season of mixed results

MAD started the year strongly with a convincing second place in Winter Split. Even though the Lions couldn’t compete against G2, they established themselves over the rest of Europe. The future was looking bright for MAD, and Spring only confirmed the high hopes as MAD managed to win the Spring Playoffs after beating G2 and reverse-sweeping BDS in the finals. Their bo5 against G2 was a reference match for them as every player was on level, and most notably, Javier "Elyoya" Prades Batalla managed to dominate Yike through excellent teamwork.

Loser’s finals against Vitality were a cruise, MAD only dropped a single loss due to an uncontrolled Tristana mid, but it was clear that MAD were by far better than Vitality. Finally, the grand Final against BDS showed the two sides of MAD: one with Matyáš "Carzzy" Orság being close to 1v9 while Elyoya would be lost on the map; the other with a hyper-dominant mid-jungle and excellent team-fighting skills. Kim "Chasy" Dong-hyeon even managed to steal the highlights from his ADC and midlaner in the final two games. The cherry on the cake: MAD ends the final with a nearly perfect game (0 death, 1 turret/drake/herald).

But then, MAD started to crumble; MSI were a big disappointment as not only did MAD lose, but they lost very hard to G2 as if Spring didn’t exist. MAD was, in fact, the only team that wouldn’t win a single game in MSI’s main event (and the only two teams that didn’t win a single game in the whole event with DFM).

Summer would be the continuation of MAD’s awful MSI, 7th place in the regular season and 7th place in playoffs. The worst of MAD that we saw in their first two games against BDS was no longer the exception, it was the rule. Thanks to their good results in the first two splits, MAD would still be invited for the LEC Season Finals, in which they only got one victory against a very weak XL, but due to their presence in the higher bracket, one single win would guarantee them third place. MAD still had a strong bo5 against Fnatic, although, nothing like Spring, but it was far better than Summer.

Magic couldn’t save MAD at worlds, however. They didn’t bottom it, but their only win was against BDS, and despite a very gentle bracket, they couldn’t win against C9 or NRG. In fact, their defeat against NRG was perhaps the worst game of Worlds overall as both teams seemed like they desperately wanted to lose, and in the end, MAD wanted to lose more than NRG.

A lack of strong synergies

During Worlds, MAD were already discussing future roster moves, which highlights the numerous troubles MAD Lions had to fight during the season. Most notably, the mid-jungle duo composed of Elyoya and Yasin "Nisqy" Dinçer was the most dysfunctional part of MAD, and it was clear the two players wouldn’t continue together heading in 2024. This may come as a surprise as Nisqy made a name for himself as one of the best jungle-enablers in the West, especially with Blaber and Bwipo. Nonetheless, tempo-wise, Elyoya and Nisqy couldn’t form a cohesion most of the time, the two players seemed very disconnected from one another.

In Summer, for example, where MAD had a 4-5 run in the regular season, 3 of these victories came from Elyoya destroying the game alone with Wukong. These wins didn’t originate from MAD’s strong team chemistry; it’s as if MAD needed a miracle for Elyoya to work well with his 4 teammates, and since he would require so much attention and resources, no other player could take his torch.

Similarly, MAD couldn’t quite assemble a botlane as strong as G2’s botlane despite Carzzy showing excellence in Summer. Zdravets "Hylissang" Iliev Galabov has had a very inconsistent year on the individual scale, which is only frustrating when you see the heights of Carzzy-Hylissang’s duo. Last but not least, Chasy had a very bizarre year as he was the carry for MAD in Spring but was left alone completely for the rest of the year as if top lane wasn’t relevant at all.

MAD hires a Spanish crew. What can we expect of it?

Elyoya’s plan to bring Melzhet alongside Supa isn’t new, it was already cited last year as a potential idea for the Spanish Jungler. As the plan to build a Spanish-cored roster has finally taken shape, we can now try to analyze what this trio would bring as a team both in terms of strategy and performance.

What kind of Jungler will Elyoya be?

Melzhet’s teams have always been focused around a Jungler that would act as a pivot in Basketball - or a regista in football - In addition, Supa and Alvaro’s aggressive Bot Lane has systematically required high proximity from Alexx (in 2022) and, most notably, Isma. This brings attention to an important conflict because Elyoya has never been efficient in a “second-support” style of jungling while Supa has developed himself as a high-resource ADC, although it is important to note that initially, Supa was a polyvalent player who could fit into most playstyles.

With that being said, Elyoya has already started a transition this year, not hesitating to play some Maokai or Sejuani if it was needed - although not with the greatest success - he still was much better when placed on Vi or Wukong. A decision will have to be made between Elyoya’s tendencies to play as a carry-jungler and Supa’s strength when being set up to hypercarry. It would be surprising to see Supa taking back the path of low-resource since his proficiency has never been higher than recently when Isma would almost every time set up a tent on the botside.

Early Game Dominance

What surely stands out from this Spanish crew is the early game activity. Supa and Alvaro have made their map movement a watermark, as very often they would help to retake mid (or even top sometimes) after recalling or crashing a wave. It even went to the point where they both would drop one full minion wave to help their solo lanes or invade. This is why Isma would gank bot around 3 minutes so frequently: Supa-Alvaro's hyperactive playstyle needs preparation.

This specific point goes into what Elyoya has slowly tried to achieve with MAD this year. The 2023 spring split winner was originally praised as a strong dueling Jungler that excelled in destroying the enemy in their own jungle, which is something that we saw a lot in Movistar’s game - especially in LVP - where Isma would bury the game by generating an enormous lead through invading and skirmishes directly in the enemy territory after first drake.

Nevertheless, past the early game, this trio raises a lot of questions. Supa can be a very strong team-fighter, but he was very inconsistent in this category, leading to a lot of throws for Movistar. Alvaro-Supa is also a bot side that has a lot of trouble coming back from gold deficits. This is where Elyoya’s role and experience will be key, as LEC offers way less space to start on a lead freely. The environment change can be a deal breaker, but despite that, Alvaro and Supa’s pairing with Elyoya is a dose of freshness for an LEC that hasn’t seen a rookie Support shine as much as rookie Junglers or Top Laners.

To conclude, we can draw a comparison between Supa-Alvaro’s Botlane and Exakick-Doss’. Both have risen to LEC together (except for the short time Doss spent in MSF in 2019), but how they did it is different. While the former LDLC bot lane came into a roster that already had two players in Mid-Jungle, Supa and Alvaro have been brought by Elyoya. We can expect the transition to be less hard for the Spanish Botlane, as for Exakick and Doss, no longer being the best Botlane (individually) in their league raised a lot of difficulties.

Myrwn and Fresskowy, the two question marks of MAD

Supa and Alvaro’s additions to LEC weren’t as big surprises as the ones of Bartłomiej "Fresskowy" Przewoźnik and Alex "Myrwn" Villarejo. However, these two additions will allow MAD to communicate in Spanish as Fresskowy speaks it.

Individually speaking, these two players are, on paper, at the bottom of LEC. In ERL, Fresskowy was a strong midlaner, on par with the strongest midlaners of the Spanish league and almost toe-to-toe with Saken in EMEA Finals. The Polish player arrives as a 24-year-old rookie with everything to prove. We mentioned that transitioning from Isma to Elyoya will be a challenge for Supa and Alvaro, but it will be an even greater issue for Fresskowy, who will, at the same time, have to face strong opposition in Europe’s strongest role. Despite all this, Fresskowy can be considered a good choice as he already has a very strong synergy with his botlane and has shown great versatility throughout his G2A/MRS years with Melzhet.

Myrwn is a much bolder choice as the former Bisons toplaner has defined inconsistency and madness in the ERLs. He was the one who popularized AP Varus top against K’sante or even bruiser Zeri top. But toplane is very open in LEC as we have seen players like Irrelevant or Chasy being more than decent in LEC despite not being G tier in ERL previously. It is certain that Myrwn is an element that can bring an X factor to MAD by using niche picks and weird strategies to disarm opposition. On the other hand, his individual level has seen Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench these last years, so Myrwn could very well be a damp squib.

Where can MAD aim to place ?

This roster is most certainly built to be at its peak on Summer and not on Winter. Looking at the different tierlists people made, MAD is expected 10th in a significant number of them. The individualities completely overshadow the team play potential MAD has, it is true that no matter how strong you are as 5, if you lose 30 cs in all lanes, you won’t go very far.

This is a building year for MAD Lions, we could even tend to believe that this project is directed at building a strong roster over 2 years. However, MAD’s aggressive playstyle may disrupt many teams as soon as Winter, it is very likely that MAD will get some astounding bo1 wins but will struggle slightly more as teams will head in bo3 and bo5.

What could very well happen as well is a total failure of some players on the individual scale, or an incompatibility between Elyoya and the rest of the team as we have seen this year for MAD. The Spanish jungler is by far the most important part of the team, as he is the most experienced player of the roster (the only experienced player, actually). MAD’s future results lies within Elyoya’s personal prowess and his capability to bring his team mates to top LEC level, as, if everything happens as it appears on paper, MAD will finish 10th. MAD is truly the team that can - and must-step up the most out of all LEC members.