With one week left until the LEC Spring Split regular season ends, Fnatic are still in the run for the next stage of the competition. After a disastrous performance in the Winter Split, the team made some changes to its roster but kicked off the split with a 0-3 week.
While the expectations placed on Fnatic at the beginning of the season have already been shattered, the second split of the year has not yet ended its regular season and it would seem that Fnatic are back in business. The team picked up victories against Team Heretics and KOI this past weekend, keeping their hopes alive for the group stage, but their issues are far from being solved.
In an interview with Dot Esports, G2 Esports support Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle broke down the reasons behind the underperforming split for Fnatic.
According to Mikyx, Fnatic are “not very good” as a team, and if the individual talents “sometimes” give them a few leads, they’re not performing as a united front on the Rift. The individual talents come out especially in mid lane, where Fnatic looks “fine” most of the time, but top and bot “don’t win that many lanes,” Mikyx said. But that is not the only problem the G2 support sees in his opponents.
“I think their drafts are also very suboptimal, at least most of them,” Mikyx said. “I feel like they don’t have a good read of the meta. Individually sometimes they don’t get enough leads playing laning phases and overall they just look disjointed.” He then shifted his attention over to the matches the opposing team won, finding the reasons for Fnatic’s victory over Heretics more in the poor performance of the latter than in the prowess of the former.
Mikyx is not the only LEC player who expressed his opinion on Fnatic’s performance and its roster. Earlier this week Wunder, Fnatic’s ex-top laner, said he did not have much hope in the team’s current roster, which led to his departure from Fnatic after the Winter Split. Before Wunder, Vitality mid laner Perkz also commented on the changes Fnatic made to the team coming into the Spring Split, saying that they don’t make “any sense.” According to Perkz, Fnatic should have opted for a more experienced player to bring into the roster in order to help them out.
Despite the issues pointed out by other LEC pro players, Fnatic might make it past the regular stage as they keep the momentum after the two wins of the last weekend. With everything on the line, Fnatic will have to first face off against MAD Lions, who are currently tied with them for seventh. Then they will meet against their historical rivals G2 on the Rift on Saturday before concluding the regular season in a game against Astralis.
With how the current standings are placed, there is no telling whether Fnatic will succeed or stumble once more.
