MAD Lions Take Over Europe as LEC’s Spring 2021 Champions
The MAD Lions make history as they win their first-ever championship against Rogue in the LEC 2021 Spring Playoffs.
After an early exit at Worlds last year, MAD Lions rebuilt their roster around their top-jungle duo in İrfan Berk “Armut” Tükek and Javier Prades “Elyoya” Batalla. Despite finishing third in the regular season, MAD Lions performed beyond their ranks to win the split and qualify for MSI 2021.
In the playoffs, MAD upset Rogue 3-1 in back-to-back close games that could have gone either way. But, against G2 Esports, MAD proved themselves as a worthy contender in the upper bracket as they handily took down the reigning champs in the same clean fashion.
Come finals, it seemed as if the consensus was right about Rogue being the better team as they were up 2-0 in the first half. However, with their backs against the wall, MAD put their carries on their comfort picks to start the reverse sweep. Despite being behind in gold, Armut’s Wukong was able to find the flanks they needed to turn the game around on Rogue’s double-carry Tristana and Caitlyn composition.
In the next game, Elyoya put on a performance on his Udyr going 5/1/6 to carry MAD to match point. MAD focused down Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu’s Gnar in the top lane to snowball the game in their favor.
In the last game, Rogue were on the precipice of closing out the series as they played proactively with Emil “Larssen” Larsson’s Realm Warps on Ryze. But once again, MAD never backed down and played teamfights perfectly with Marek “Humanoid” Brázda stepping up on his Viktor going 7/1/5 to win the series.
MAD Lions will be representing Europe in the coming Mid-Season Invitational in Reykjavik, Iceland. This marks the first time that G2 Esports and Fnatic are left out of the finals in the LEC.
Follow LoL Esports on Facebook, Twitter, and on their official website for further details on MSI 2021.
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