The second week of the
League of Legends EMEA Championship began this Saturday, featuring the Summer Split debuts of Europe’s representatives at the Mid-Season Invitational and Esports World Cup,
G2 Esports and
Movistar KOI. Both teams managed to secure wins in their opening matches. G2 dominated
Team Heretics with a clean sweep, showcasing their strong form. Meanwhile, Movistar KOI faced a tougher battle against
GIANTX but fought hard and ultimately secured the victory, starting their Summer Split campaign on a positive note.
Neither of the two games in the G2 vs. Team Heretics best-of series lasted over 30 minutes. Game 1 started with Carl "Carlsen" Carlsen giving first blood to Steven "Hans Sama" Liv within the first minute, but the Danish toplaner quickly made up for it with a solo kill on the French AD Carry shortly after. This early setback didn’t significantly impact G2’s snowball, with Hans Sama finishing his Jinx at 9/1/8 and dealing nearly 30k damage.
The final game was nearly perfect from G2, with a 17-0 kill score and Team Heretics only managing to take one turret. Despite a promising start for Kamil "Kamiloo" Haudegond in the laning phase, a gank from Rudy "SkewMond" Semaan helped his midlaner turn the tide in midlane and perfectly snowball that advantage. Team Heretics suffer their second consecutive loss after last week’s defeat to Fnatic. Their tough schedule so far has seen them face the group’s top two seeds first, but they should find better opportunities against SK Gaming and Team BDS — teams that seem to be their direct rivals for a playoff spot.
The second best-of series was much tighter. GIANTX opened the score against the reigning Spring Split champions thanks to a near-perfect performance from Oh "
Noah" Hyeon-taek on Kai'Sa, finishing 19/1/2. The second game was quite short, with KOI executing coordinated teamfights and a 100% kill participation from support Álvaro "
Alvaro" Fernández del Amo. Finally, the decider game was full of twists and turns. GX seemed unstoppable, with Adam "
Jackies" Jeřábek on Yone showing great ease. Despite having nearly a 6,000 gold lead, GX completely collapsed — just under 30 minutes in, KOI secured the clean sweep in this best-of series.
In a post on his X account, GX assistant coach
Nicolas Perez described the cause of their defeat as “
a lack of discipline because we were too emotional being ahead, then we panicked and lost our ability to play the game.” He sees this as the final hurdle the team must overcome to compete with the top LEC teams. Sunday, August 10, marks the last day of the second week, starting with Fnatic aiming for a third consecutive win against BDS, followed by the most anticipated match of the week: Karmine Corp versus KOI — a best-of series that swung twice in favor of the Spanish side during the Spring Split Playoffs.
