The road to playoffs hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Fnatic this Summer Split. The League of Legends team is currently tied in the regular season standings for fifth place, and they even have the most deaths of any team in the LEC to boot.
As of week four, Fnatic have 121 collective deaths as a roster, three more than FC Schalke 04, who sit in last place with an abysmal 1-8 record. This should be pretty alarming for LEC fans, who considered the perennial European champions a contender for the crown this season.
More than half of those deaths belong to top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau and support Zdravets “Hylissang” Galabov, who are the LEC death leaders this season with 35 and 40 deaths, respectively.
Both players haven’t performed up to par these past few weeks, but the roster as a unit hasn’t played well together. From untimely mistakes to unforced errors, Fnatic haven’t stayed consistent enough to garner any faith from their fanbase just yet.
They’ve won only one game over the past three weeks, even sporting a loss against Schalke 04. Fans were stunned by this defeat, especially with how Schalke have played over the whole split. Luckily for Fnatic, the LEC went on a two-week break, which could have helped them recharge and regroup for the second half of the season.
Fnatic are currently tied for 3rd with a scoreline for 7-7. They’ve lost crucial games against bottom tier teams. One example is against Schalke04.
Schalke played well together, showing decisive shot-calling that we haven’t seen too much of this past split. Gilius also gave the team a shot of proactivity from the jungle, which might be what the roster needed to reach their true potential as a unit.
On the other side of Summoner’s Rift, however, Fnatic looked out of sorts with their decision-making and teamwork. Throughout the game, individual players made questionable calls and engages that led to lost teamfights. Others were simply caught out of position and disposed of by Schalke.
By the end of the match, Fnatic had only secured one kill as a team—they also only took two turrets and were down 9,000 gold as well. Their macro play wasn’t strong at all, and Schalke took advantage of every mistake they made.
The perennial LEC champions haven’t looked like themselves this entire split and are now sitting in fifth place with a lackluster 4-5 record. Although there’s still time to bring things back and turn around the season, Fnatic fans have every right to be worried after losing to the lowest team in the standings.
ADC Nihat “Innaxe” Aliev demonstrated some cool Aphelios mechanics in the game, nearly carrying his team back towards a win some weeks ago.