For the European team Fnatic, the LoL Worlds 2021 are over. It looked promising when they defeated the strongest team in the group, Royal Never Give Up. However, the South Koreans are currently too strong in League of Legends: Hanwha Life, branded as a ‘One-Man’ team, was too much for the Europeans.
This is the situation:
- Fnatic has just gone through a transformation: The largest team in Europe has brought in a young talent for the Top Lane, moved the old Top Laner to the Jungle, and replaced the legend Rekless with the German ADC Upset. With this adjustment, success and hope have returned.
- Before the LoL Worlds, they had relatively good luck with the draw: With PSG Talon and Royal Never Give Up, they faced tough but manageable tasks in the group.
- But then everything turned against Fnatic: They were drawn against ‘Hanwha Life’, known as the ‘Church of Chovy’: A team centered around exceptional player Chovy in the Mid Lane. Additionally, the ADC Upset had to leave for family reasons.
After losing everything in the first round and standing at 0-3, Fnatic actually had little chance of reaching the quarter-finals.
Fnatic wins against strong Chinese teams
This gave hope: In the first round, they could not gain any ground against the Chinese team “Royal Never Give Up”, suffering a 34 to 13 defeat in 30 minutes.
But in Game 2, everything went differently: Jungler Bwipo had a phenomenal performance on Viego with an 8-3-16 score, and Top Laner Adam endured a tough time on Jayce but turned it around in the endgame. Fnatic managed to win the match in 37 minutes.
Fnatic on the victory path against RNG:
Then it was over: The toughest game for Fnatic came against Hanwha Life Esports: The team is known as the ‘Church of Chovy’, as they have one of the best players in the world, Chovy, in the Mid Lane, but no big names otherwise.
Fnatic managed to keep the game close for a long time and engaged in an epic match with Hanwha Life that lasted 43 minutes. Especially the German ADC Bean seemed to grow with each game and began to pick up momentum, but Chovy proved too tough of a challenge: He played dominantly with a score of 9-1-8 on LeBlanc, sealing Fnatic’s fate.
Now they stood at 1-4 in a hopeless position. The last game of the group against PSG Talon had become meaningless.
For Europe, everything could be over after the group stage
This is the general mood after the exit: The fans are not blaming Fnatic. They fought bravely and earned respect. It is mainly regretted that Upset’s departure meant that Fnatic had little realistic chance to escape the group.
The big topic on reddit right now is that the Chinese LPL, which was regarded as the best league in the world, appears weak in week 2: The favorites FunPlus Phoenix have been eliminated, and the other two top teams, Royal Never Give Up and EDward Gaming, have both already lost 2 matches.
The LCK now appears significantly more dominant: South Korea now has 3 teams in the quarter-finals and a good chance that the 4th team Gen. G. could also make it.
Bitter for Europe: 2 of the 3 teams in the race have already been eliminated, and Mad Lions is also against the wall.
On the other hand, a US team has sensationally qualified for the quarter-finals:
LoL Worlds: The best player in Europe saves the USA, embarrasses China
