Fnatic picked up their second win of the week, cementing themselves as the leaders of the League of Legends European Championship standings in an intense game against Schalke 04. The game was a bloodbath with 29 kills in 31 minutes.
While the entire roster of Fnatic outperformed S04’s players, S04 refused to give up and tried to come back into the game with a better macro play. Their attempts were unsuccessful, and they fell to Fnatic’s superior display of skill. The Player of the Game title was picked up by Fnatic AD carry Rekkles, who had a wonderful game on Aphelios, finishing with a KDA of 9/1/4.
Fnatic used Herald to take down the mid lane inhibitor of S04 at around 19 minutes, which gave them room to play around the map and secure other objectives. While the game seemed doomed for S04, the players found ways to come back. They started farming the waves which were permanently pushing into their base and began slowly coming back into the game.
At one point, Fnatic got overzealous and paid with their life, allowing S04 to secure the Baron, but they did not let them escape without consequences. A teleport play by Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau alongside an engage by Tim “Nemesis” Lipovšek cleaned up the teamfight and S04 were left with only one member alive with the Baron buff.
Fnatic are now the first team to hit nine wins on the season. While this win was not as clean as others, it was against the lion in the cage of S04, who have been fighting for their life to try to climb in the standings. S04 played fearlessly and have been improving on a constant basis since they brought in AD carry Nihat “Innaxe” Aliev.
S04 did not give up in this game, even when Fnatic were knocking on their door with the Ocean Dragon Soul alongside super minions from two lanes. They fought to their death but in the end fell to Fnatic’s might with Rekkles leading the charge.
Fnatic will be tested next week when they face another contender for the top of the leaderboards, G2 Esports. Tune in Saturday, March 7 at 2pm CT on Riot’s official broadcast to see who will come out on top.
