MAD Lions defend LEC trophy, top Fnatic in LEC Summer Finals

William Davis Published 29/08/2021

MAD Lions defeated Fnatic in the 2021 LEC Summer Split Finals and defended its LEC title after four intense and action-packed games.  

It was a real nail-biter when MAD Lions clashed with Fnatic on Sunday in the 2021 LEC Summer Split final for the last domestic trophy of the year. It was a match between the defending champion MAD Lions and Fnatic, which fought its way through the first round of the lower bracket with one impressive result after the other. Fnatic came into the final after knocking out Rogue convincingly 3-0 yesterday and was hungry to reclaim the LEC throne today.

Right from the first game, MAD Lions showcased why it qualified directly to the final and made sure to prove that Fnatic wasn’t going to have an easy time today. After just a few minutes, it was clear that the series was going to be a bloodbath. Both did their best to get ahead in the early game, but it was ultimately MAD Lions who got the first win through great team fighting and a blowout performance from mid laner Marek “Humanoid” Brázda on Ryze. 

For the second game, it was Fnatic’s time to shine and show how oppressive it can be in the early game. After getting two kills in the first minute, Fnatic got the snowball rolling, resulting in 12 kills in the first 12 minutes. This put MAD Lions significantly behind and left the players with nothing to do other than try to answer that offense with some offense of their own. This had MAD Lions stay in the game for much longer than they should have, but ultimately Fnatic found the right fight and closed out the game to tie the series.  

Trying to be the first team to reach match point, Fnatic changed its strategy in game three by picking some beefier champions with Jarvan IV in the jungle and Cho’Gath up top. Even though these picks might be a bit slower than the previous picks from Fnatic, it didn’t stop them from getting kills in the early game. While Fnatic was going for the kills all over the map, MAD Lions tried to stabilize through objective control with Ziggs and Gangplank. 

The focus on objectives got MAD Lions ahead in gold during the first 15 minutes, but Fnatic kept pressuring by forcing plays everywhere. This had the game end up being another close one where only execution would decide the winner. After exiting the laning phase, MAD Lions slowly started to punish Fnatic’s aggression and was able to crawl ahead. As the game went into its later stages, MAD Lions outclassed Fnatic in every fight with jungler Javier “Elyoya” Batalla and top laner İrfan “Armut” Tükek being as dominant as it gets. 

One game away from its second championship, MAD Lions went for aggressive picks like Renekton, LeBlanc, and Viego. All these picks made it clear that MAD Lions wanted a fast-paced game with a lot of action. 

The plan to get ahead was quickly challenged by Fnatic’s skirmish composition with mid laner Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer leading the charge on Irelia. Instead of giving Nisqy a chance to snowball the game, MAD Lions turned their heads towards the top lane where Fnatic’s Adam “Adam” Maanane got heavily punished on Mordekaiser. The huge deficit in the top lane gave Armut the perfect setup to carry, which was enough to put the final nail in the Fnatic coffin and secure the trophy after 30 minutes.

This is the second LEC trophy in a row for MAD Lions, who denied Fnatic in the last stage of the playoffs after a great run through the lower bracket. Both teams will move directly to the Worlds 2021 group stage as the two top seeds from Europe. It will be the second appearance for MAD Lions at Worlds, after attending last year’s play-in stage. Last year, MAD Lions didn’t perform on the international stage but will likely be a more serious threat this time around on home soil. 

The next time fans will see LEC teams in action will be at the upcoming 2021 World Championship, which will be held in Europe this year. The LEC representatives are MAD Lions, Fnatic, and Rogue.

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