LEC 2023 Winter Split: SK Gaming Reaches Top 4 After 8 Years

The Group Stage of the League of Legends EMEA [Europe, Middle East, and Africa] Championship (LEC) came to a close on 19th February, with four teams punching in their slots for the playoffs, coming one step further to being crowned the first Winter champion. SK Gaming won against Team Vitality with a 2-0 scoreline and made it to the top four of the league. SK Gaming will now face MAD Lions in the first round of the playoffs on 24th February. Notably, the team won six out of the nine games in the regular season to make it to the group stage.

For the first time in eight years, SK Gaming has locked a top-four spot in the European league after taking down Team Vitality in the elimination match. The last time SK Gaming was on top was in 2015 when the league was called EU LCS (Europe League of Legends Championship Series) and the team placed first in the Spring Season with a 15-3 scoreline. 

The SK Gaming roster is as follows:

• Top: Joel “Irrelevant” Scharoll

• Jungle: Mark “Markoon” van Woense

• Mid: Daniel “Sertuss” Gamani

• AD carry: Thomas “Exakick” Foucou

• Support: Mads “Doss” Schwartz

SK Gaming defeats Team Vitality in the Group Stage

SK Gaming finished third in the regular season in the LEC Winter Split. Going into the match-up, the team was still widely considered the underdog given that Team Vitality finished first in the regular season. But SK managed to make things work as everyone on the team performed incredibly well to take the team over the line. In the first game of the best-of-three (BO3) series, SK overcame a huge gold deficit, played teamfights well, took down the Baron Nashor, and destroyed Vitality’s base and Nexus. The second game, however, was complete dominance from the side of SK Gaming as it styled over Team Vitality to make it to the playoffs.

The remodeling of the LEC is working wonders for the league and the fans are loving it. The LEC currently is unpredictable with top teams like Fnatic already out of the running. Since there are only three weeks of the regular season left to play, teams are expected to deliver the best possible results to make it to the next stage. Apart from SK Gaming, the three other teams that made it to the LEC 2023 Winter Split are MAD Lions, G2 Esports, and KOI.