Fnatic hands Gen.G first loss at Worlds 2020, exploits weaknesses

William Davis Published 06/10/2020

Fnatic handed Gen.G its first loss at the 2020 League of Legends World Championship group stage after an impressive team effort.

Gen.G has been succeeding with its controlled late game play style so far at Worlds. But against Fnatic, they tried something new. Instead of a team fight oriented composition, Gen.G went for the Nidalee in the jungle and Renekton on top. The duo is known to be very strong in the early to mid game, but tends to fall off heavily in team fights.

Fnatic drafted towards comfort and had a really strong composition for team fights, making it look like the perfect chance for the European fan-favorites to make an upset.

Even though Gen.G had the early game composition, it was Fnatic who managed to pressure from the start. Fnatic played wisely towards the bot lane, where Martin “Rekkles” Larsson and Zdravets “Hylissang” Galabov got the first blood on their own.

Rekkles managed to get a big lead over Gen.G’s star player Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk, which was enough for Fnatic to snowball the game out of control. Fnatic proved for the first time that they can compete in group C and that Gen.G is exploitable.

Fnatic ties up Gen.G for first place in the group and everything is now wide open once again.

Gen.G fails to play early game composition at Worlds 2020

For the first time at this year’s Worlds, Gen.G aimed towards playing an aggressive early game through the top and jungle. With Nidalee and Renekton, Gen.G should have been able to put pressure on the Fnatic lanes but they didn’t manage to do so.

Fnatic got to punish them in the bot lane, which took away all the focus from Nidalee and Renekton to do anything. Gen.G still managed to punch back in the mid game with a great fight in the bot lane, but the composition needed a bigger lead to prevent being outscaled.

The early game composition was a nice try from Gen.G, but there is no doubt that they thrive better on scaling. Gen.G is most likely forced to practice these compositions since they might face aggressive opponents down the road. Playing pure scaling against teams such as Top Esports and DAMWON Gaming won’t be strong in this meta.

Fnatic exploits Gen.G’s weaknesses at Worlds 2020

Fnatic was the first team to show that Gen.G has some clear weaknesses. Just like Gen.G, Fnatic is known for its controlled style and tendency to play for late-game fights. This time, Fnatic was the only team to draft in that direction, a blessing for them.

Fnatic instantly punished Gen.G’s disrespectful composition and showed that shutting down the Gen.G bot lane can pay dividends. Despite some mid game mistakes by Fnatic, their compositions were miles ahead and never in real danger of losing.

Fnatic and Gen.G will return to the stage on October 10.

William Davis

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