LEC Summer 2019 Semifinals: Schalke 04 vs Fnatic Recap

Game One

The LEC Finals weekend is finally here and it started off with a bang! Schalke 04 (“S04”) were the underdogs coming into this series, and Fnatic (“FNC”) clearly demonstrated why. Broxah started his team's snowball with a gank towards the middle lane to get Nemesis First Blood. Shortly after, they contested S04 at the Rift Herald. Here, FNC slaughtered four from S04 and secured multiple kills for Rekkles. Though Trick pulled off a 1v3 Double Kill in the top lane, it wasn't enough for him to turn the tide.

Once FNC had the lead they never gave S04 a way in. Whenever S04 tried to make a play, FNC would take multiple objectives on the other side of the map. They knocked down tower after tower, and when the mid-game rolled around, also caught out three S04 members on separate occasions. After the third pick, this one onto Ignar, FNC went straight to Baron and secured the buff. This buff was devastating for S04 and allowed FNC to take a winning team fight, two Inhibitors and the Nexus.

QUICK STATS:

Time: 27:36
Kills: 5-11
Turrets: 3-9
Gold: 44.3k-54.8k
Dragons: 0-3
Barons: 0-1

Game Two

The second game of this series was another seemingly easy win for FNC. The total game time went longer than the previous one, but a skirmish inside S04's jungle at two minutes gave Broxah two kills and spelled doom for S04. There was a great skirmish around mid for S04 that netted three kills for Abbedagge, but Broxah's Lee Sin ramped up the tempo of the game and got kills all around the map. This early game was bloody, with kills for each team, but the mid-game was even bloodier.

Game Three

FNC closed out the series promptly with a third, convincing victory. Each game they got advantages early on but this game decided to get that lead even earlier. As such, they invaded at level one and killed Trick for First Blood. In addition to this play, another one near the middle lane resulted in three more kills for FNC. After this FNC camped the middle lane and killed Abbedagge twice. They went into the mid-game with a lead that looked insurmountable.

But S04 actually showed a sign of life. At 21 minutes, S04 won a team fight in the middle lane one-for-zero and secured the Baron right after. Now S04 had a foothold back into the game. FNC ripped that away from them though, as they forced a fight on them in the bottom lane and picked up three kills. From here the game stalled out for a bit, but FNC ended up taking a Baron of their own at 31 minutes. With it, FNC dismantled all of S04's towers and Inhibitors before eviscerating four S04 champions and claiming their Nexus.