Playoffs Buff Activated: Fnatic Surges Through Week 8 & Makes Playoffs

Before the start of the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) Summer Split Week 8, Fnatic, one of the most storied teams in the league, was staring at the possibility of a regular season exit and missing out on playoffs and Worlds 2022. Fnatic has never missed playoffs in its franchise’s history and this fear factor turned the team into formidable beasts. The team showcased resilience and zeal as it blazed through the last week of play with a 3-0 score and clawed its way back to the top six in the standings. Fnatic’s marquee bottom lane showed up big time and cemented solid leads over their opponents.

Recap of all Fnatic games from Week 8

Coming into Week 8, Fnatic was 7-8 in the standings and was placed 8th in the LEC. According to the stats, it had only a 30.5% chance of locking in a playoff spot. Despite things looking grim for the team, it understood that it had to win all its matches to make it into the playoffs. Fnatic played three teams in Week 8, won all of them, and defied expectations. It had games against the following teams:

• Astralis on 12th August

• Vitality on 13th August

• Misfits Gaming on 14th August

Astralis (AST) had a nice lead over Fnatic on Week 8 Day 2 but it slowly slipped away from the team. At 22-minutes, Fnatic had three dragons and a 5K gold lead over AST. Soon after, Fnatic secured the Ocean Dragon soul and the Baron Nashor and marched into the base of AST, and ended the game in under 33 minutes.

The match against Vitality started off slow but turned into a stomp for Fnatic. Elias "Upset" Lipp was the game-winning player who played Zeri and ran around Vitality in circles and killed its members one after the other. Vitality seemingly struggled against Zeri and could not lock her down. Its idea to play for the late game with Senna and Azir also did not work out. Zdravets "Hylissang" Iliev Galabov’s Lulu pick came in clutch in the last game-winning fight where he used his W - Whimsy on Senna to make sure that his attack damage carry (ADC) stays alive and cleans up house. Upset had 14 kills that game and his Zeri was immaculate.

Misfits Gaming (MSF) gave away Upset’s Zeri pick for free yet again despite seeing how well he had performed with the champion. It was a mini-recap of the Fnatic vs Vitality game because the Zeri managed to keep running away and was a nuisance to deal with. The game was even till the mid-game but Fnatic’s call to sneak Baron Nashor lent the team an edge over MSF. Following this, it was just a matter of Fnatic securing objectives and slowly pushing into MSF’s base and it stuck to the plans. After denying MSF the second Baron, Fnatic’s Upset managed to stay alive, and eventually, the game was over.

Following this, Fnatic played a tie-breaker game against Misfits Gaming again to decide the fourth slot team for the playoffs. This time around, Misfits Gaming did not play to the tune of Fnatic as it bounced back with a strong 30-minute victory. Now, Fnatic is placed fifth in the league and will have to play through the single-elimination lower bracket and have a perfect run to win the Summer Split.