Written by DanEsports

With the EU LCS Spring Promotion Tournament coming up, the tension is rising in the Riot Games studio. 2 out of 4 teams are going back into Challenger Series and out of the spotlight on the big stage.

This year’s version of the Relegation tournament features 2 LCS veterans in SK and Gambit, both extremely historically relevant to EULCS with a long list of achievements. Still, both of them find themselves in the bottom 3 of LCS, fighting with Challenger Series’ teams for survival.

Their contenders are veterans of their own league aswell, Gamers 2 and Mousesports are both established organisations, which have tried their luck in the secondary league multiple times with different rosters.

With both sides of the field having a detailed history the storyline potential is massive this split. This article is going to explain a few of the narratives of this relegation tournament. David against Goliath - Gambit Gaming Vs. Mousesports  

Does Mousesports work against LCS teams?

Mousesports, often referred to as Mouz, has been the surprise of this Challenger Series Split. Without much expectation they swept favourites Gamers 2 two to zero in the playoffs and made the finals against Dig.EU extremely close. Their split has been extremely impressive for a lineup that was widely predicted to end bottom 3.

Different to the norm in CS, Mousesports did not achieve those results on the basis on 5 mechanically talented players, much rather because of their advanced teamplay and their strong drafts. Mousesports is a team that makes up for the lack of mechanical skill with smart play towards their win conditions and great teamfighting synergy.

They have shown a consistent weakness throughout their split. Mousesports has fallen behind nearly every early game averaging a -579.3 gold difference at 15 minutes in the summer playoffs they placed  2nd in. In other words, Mouz falls behind early game but still wins the game afterwards. Their early just hasn’t been punished in challenger, the only team to properly snowball leads against Mousesports has been Dig.EU.

But they are not facing a CS team, they are facing Gambit and that team is probably the strongest team to ever end up in relegation. Even with P1noy replacing Forg1ven they still have one of the best toplaners in the west and teamplay far more advanced than any CS team. The main question will be if Mouz can overcome the early game deficits and elevate their teamplay to LCS level. Gambit can simply beat them at their own game -- this game is the ultimate trial for Mousesports to show that they are more than a team on a streak.  

Beansu’s trial by fire

The second big storyline during this match will take place in the toplane. Mousesport’s toplaner Beansu has been a longstanding player in the challenger scene and a highly praised talent. You could describe this split as his breakout one, delivering really good performances on any kind of champion, easily setting him apart from others in the Challenger Series.  

This is his first official game against an LCS team. This is his big test, he is facing one of the most prominent toplaners in the west in Gambit’s Cabochard.

Beansu will not only be tested on the big stage, it will be against one of the best toplaners in the region. He has been praised for a long time by experts and players but this is his chance to cement himself as high level toplaner in the eye of the public. Even in the case of a Mousesports defeat, his individual performance on this day will hold special significance for his future.

Old grudges - Gamers 2 vs SK Gaming  

The Innerflame journey

The most obvious storyline in this tournament will be Gamers 2 Manager Innerflame facing his old team SK Gaming. Under his supervision SK managed to end the spring split at first place and pull of an extremely strong first half of the split, ending with a 15-3 record in first place. After he left the team SK crumbled, going from one of Europe’s best teams to a disastrous 9th place with a 6-12 record. The question of how much of this development has to do with Innerflame’s departure is completely up to debate, but he’s facing a team that fell apart after he left, with a team that grew in success after he joined. He will have to overcome his old teammates, who are the general favorites going into the match, with a lineup of some extremely talented young players.

The storyline extends when you consider that Gamers 2 ADCarry Jesse Le used to play Midlane in SK a season ago under the tag “Jesiz”, he will have to beat his old teammates aswell.

Their chances seem solid, with a great amount of individual talent on the team and experienced jungler Kikis to lead the rookies the dream this organisation has chased forever might just come true. Their opponents are a team of longstanding LCS veterans like Svenskeren, Fredy122 or Candypanda, who showed improvement as the split went on. The addition of the talented support player Noxiak is not only a straight mechanical upgrade over nRated, but might also just what the team needed.

The €100,000 team

This is what makes this a real grudge match. When SK Gaming was looking like it would completely collapse with all players ready to leave the team, they needed an emergency plan. And it looked like Gamers 2 would be their saving grace. After first being accused of trying to poach Support player Hybrid, SK later made an official offer to buy the entire Gamers 2 roster. But the deal was not finalized as Gamers 2 asked for the immense amount of €100,000 for the roster. This would provoke extreme reactions by the community as this amount of money was unheard of for players out of the second league. It’s most likely Gamers 2 wanted to keep the roster anyways and just asked for this amount of money so the deal wouldn’t happen and when taking a closer look you can see why this team was worth this much to Gamers 2.

The team is based around some outstanding talents paired with experienced ex-LCS players.

One of their stars has been Perkz who had his breakout performance this split, fulfilling his hype over this season. He dealt an average 773 damage per minute, which is the highest across the entire split of the Challenger Series and an entire 100 damage per minute more than the second highest.

Gamers 2 support player Hybrid has really shown an extremely solid performance, being a great force when it came to engaging and creating picks around the map.

If that is going to be enough against players who played on the worlds stage has yet to be proven, but if Gamers 2 doesn't underperform and sticks to their strengths, it should bode well for them.

Hybrid vs. Noxiak

This is a matchup CS fans can appreciate, Hybrid and Noxiak are the 2 of the biggest Support talents Europe has produced in this season and now they will have to square off for an LCS spot.

While Noxiak had a rather lackluster showing on Ex Nihilo this CS split, he still showed promise during his time with MeetYourMakers in the last LCS split. As an extremely potent player on peel heavy supports like Janna he might develop an interesting dynamic with Candypanda who tends to position aggressively but hasn’t played with a support as mechanically sound as Noxiak.  

Hybrid, on the other hand, could be described as the complete opposite. While just skilled individually, he is paired with a passive AD-Carry in Jesse Le, who positions very safely allowing him to focus more on engaging or Hybrid focuses his CC on the enemy backline rather than peeling for his AD-Carry. Unsurprisingly, his best performances are on Thresh where he can make a lot of use of the CC in his kit.

Them facing off will be a great insight into the future of LCS botlane talent.

The EU relegation tournament starts on 5th September at 14:00 CEST or 05:00 PDT with Innerflame’s Gamers 2 against his old team SK Gaming and continue with Mousesports against Gambit Gaming right afterwards.