LEC: BDS send SK back to european irrelevancy

The LEC Season Finals has advanced one match further as the first BO5 of the loser bracket was played between third seed Team BDS and fifth seed SK Gaming. The suspense was short-lived as BDS dominated SK Gaming right from the first game, appearing to be a full league ahead.

Despite the outcome, Franco-Belgian rookie Ismaïl 'Isma' Boualem put on a brief show with his Nocturne at the start of the match. However, when the 15 minute clock hit the Rift, BDS' superior macro and lane assignment allowed them to shut down SK's topside snowball and make their two carries outscale SK double adc comp. This gave Yoon "Ice" Sang-hoon and Ilias "nuc" Bizriken the edge to take over the game with a Cassiopeia-Ezreal combo that was too much zoning for SK to handle.

Game 2 was close to a repeat but BDS adapted even quicker to Isma's activity. Adam "Adam" Maanane's unexpectedly flexed Cassiopeia on his toplane which generated a pure lane lead over Joel "Irrelevant" Miro Scharoll's Rumble. In the meantime, Ice's Ashe made arrows rain over SK's heads and made midlaner Yasin "Nisqy" Dinçer's game turn into a nightmare. All in all, the two first games showed a superior BDS on almost every aspect of the game, leaving little room to play for the German structure.

Last but not least, game 3 was close to be a total stomp. Dominating all sides of the map, BDS lost one teamfight (the only one of the series) after a badly set up Baron, leaving Cho "Rahel" Min-seong on his first ever occasion to showcase his teamfighting skills on Zeri. Despite this highlight, the game still lasted 25 minutes and SK were nowhere near taking over BDS.

Prior to this game, team BDS was sent to the loser bracket by a clinical FNC which humbled them with a 3-0 clear victory. As often, BDS' status of a top LEC team was questioned after this defeat.

However, with such a large victory over SK Gaming, a team expected to tickle LEC top spots - which was also on a good momentum with their new Korean botlane and a resurrected Yasin "Nisqy" Dinçer - BDS are proving once more that their presence in LEC top 4 is deserved. Today was both a strong collective and individual performance, with no player being particularly under everyone else and a clean macro execution. Théo "Sheo" Borile may have been jostled by Isma, but this little issue was made irrelevant by BDS' excellent decision making throughout the series.

SK Gaming on the other hand are sent with an ending they know too well : top 5-6 and a very uncomfortable chair in the middle tier of the LEC. At the beginning of the year, we titled our article about SK in LEC as "awaiting for the spotlight". We also said that "SK’s team building for 2024 resembles a lot from what has been done in 2023, however, the same results would be another disappointment. SK Gaming is the only starting and remaining LEC team not to have ever won a BO5, another year with this would be a major failure."

One new year has passed, and despite two strong regular season results, SK still has not win a single bo5 in LEC and keeps on disappointing. Nisqy's and Irrelevant's year have also been on the disappointing side, the belgian midlaner - now a veteran - has massively struggled against Nuc today, failing to efficiently adapt to the midlane meta, similarly, irrelevant, now very experienced, hasn't shown any sign of step up.

The botlane and Isma are however on the good side of SK's year. The former MRS jungler has quickly risen among the best EMEA junglers. Additionally, the replacement of Thomas "Exakick" Foucou and Mads "Doss" Schwartz by Korean imports Rahel and Lee "Luon" Hyun-ho was an instant match. These two successes can serve as a foundation for SK to build on ahead of 2025.