On Monday, January 27th, there was a showdown at League of Legends in the LEC. The leading team, GiantX, faced the reigning champion G2 Esports. Even before the match in LoL, there was trouble on Twitter and in the arena.
This is the situation in the LEC: G2 has been the best team in Europe for years. Even though they are not performing as strongly internationally as they did in 2019, when they almost became world champions, they have now won the championship title in Europe 6 times in a row. Since April 2023, the champion of the LEC has repeatedly been G2 Esports.
But 2025 has not been going well for the team so far: G2 restructured their roster after the last season and a disappointing world championship: 2 new players joined the team and there are teething problems. They have already lost 3 games and are stuck in the middle of the standings.
The new strong team at the beginning of the season was GiantX, a newly formed team with the former bot lane of Fnatic. They were now on top.
Challenger’s Coach Takes a Dig at G2
So the arrows flew before the match: The coach of GiantX, 30-year-old Portuguese André Guilhoto
Pereira Guilhoto, wrote before the match on X:
Today we are playing against G2 and there is good news. They can’t dodge in drafts like they do in scrims.
There was a clear accusation that G2 was not playing fair in training matches, misbehaving.
To “dodge in a draft” means that a team aborts a match after the champion selection and before gameplay starts: This way, one can see what champions the opponent might choose, but does not reveal their own plans.
Accusations of dodging a draft always imply that it is unsportsmanlike and that one may be afraid.
G2 Faces a Lot of Mockery Before the Match
This was the atmosphere before the match: The comment sparked a discussion on reddit. The mood was clearly against G2 and on the side of GiantX:
- G2 has managed to squander their aura as the strongest team in just 2 weeks
- The team now seems beatable; no one is afraid of G2 anymore
- The team is just not performing – the newcomers are not working. G2 should have never restructured the team – that was a big mistake
G2 Fails to Reach the Worlds
This was the sharpest attack: The coach even said in an interview that G2 would not make it to the Worlds, thus would not even belong to the top 3 teams in Europe. Other teams would surpass them. That was his opinion.
From G2’s perspective, this was already a case of lèse-majesté.
The statement did not sit well with Dylan Falco, the coach of G2. He mockingly responded that the Portuguese had already experienced failing with super teams
. He himself does not know that:
What is Dylan Falco referring to? Guilhoto was the head coach at Team Liquid in the USA from 2021 to 2022, where they had a super team
with players like Bjergsen, Hans sama, Santorin, and Bwipo – but did not achieve the desired success.
G2 Overwhelms Brazen Challenger
This is how the match went: G2 overwhelmed GiantX with a score of 16-4 in just 27 minutes. Especially the new jungler, SkewMod, delivered an outstanding performance on Zyra with 5-0-7. The German player Broken Blade also performed flawlessly with a score of 3-0-2.
In the comments on reddit, G2 fans are now on top and mocking back:
- “Such a Zyra, who stands 3-0-2 after 8 minutes – did you perhaps do a remake in the scrims?”
- “But I heard that the jungler is so weak”
How the Coach Reacts: The coach of GiantX, who had previously been so boastful, must now chuckle at how his own words have backfired. He posts a picture on Twitter that shows him very strong while tweeting, and then very small with a hat while drafting. Unfortunately, the German team SK Gaming is not doing well in the LEC: German player fights his way back into the pro league of LoL for 2 years, meets the final boss
