The Esports World Cup Qualifiers for the LEC and ERL teams are underway, and Round 1 led to some interesting series.
The qualifiers will allow two EMEA teams to qualify for the $2 million League of Legends tournament at EWC later this year.
Round 1 saw EMEA Masters champions Solary and runners-up Galions hold their own in their first matches against LEC opposition.
The tournament will continue tomorrow, with LEC Rivals’ top four G2 Esports, Karmine Corp, Movistar KOI, and GIANTX joining the fray.
Here are all the results from the opening round.
Solary Push Team Vitality to the Limit
Solary versus Team Vitality was easily the most entertaining series of the day, with three brilliant action-packed matches.
Despite Solary’s recent EUM win, Vitality were heavily favoured, seeing as they are one of the most in-form LEC teams and are currently on a six-game win streak.
At 4.5k gold down in game one, Solary were still fighting well and keeping themselves in the match.
A clever pick using K’Sante to line up Marek ‘Humanoid’ Brázda into an Ashe arrow allowed Solary to take Baron despite the gold deficit.
But Vitality’s lead was still too much, and the LEC team took the lead in the series.
However, Solary then took the next — largely thanks to jungler Lanzo ‘Zicssi’ Ciajolo, who has been one of the best players in ERLs this year.
Zicssi was having a monstrous game on Zaahen to the point that he was individually 5k gold up on Vitality jungler Linas ‘Lyncas’ Nauncikas.
Lyncas redeemed himself in Game 3 with four early kills on Nocturne, but Solary again fought their way back into the game.
Felix ‘Kryze’ Hellström’s Sion made Solary’s back-to-front fighting a big issue for Vitality, causing Matyáš ‘Carzzy’ Orság to buy an early Lord Dominik’s Regards.
In the end, Zicssi solokilled Lyncas on the side of a team fight, but in the rest of the skirmish Carzzy picked up a triple kill to secure the win for Vitality.
Vitality will take on MKOI in the next round.
NAVI Stomp Galions 2-0
LEC Playoffs qualified Natus Vincere were always going to be favourites, but Galions put up a decent fight.
At least, their bot lane did as Franciszek ‘HARPOON’ Gryszkiewicz and Théo ‘Zoelys’ Le Scornec repeatedly got the better of their lane opponents.
In fact, in the first game, Team France LoL support Zoelys had picked up four kills in the early game.
In both matches, Galions’ killed NAVI’s bot lane in 2v2 fights, but the team quickly threw away its lead once the teams grouped.
HARPOON and his teammates kept making mistakes, which allowed NAVI to outclass Galions in team fights and to win 2-0 rather comfortably in the end.
NAVI will now face GIANTX while Galions has dropped into the Lower Bracket.
Fnatic Overcome Shifters
Fnatic have been struggling in the LEC but have shown improvements in recent weeks and started off the qualifiers with a big win.
Shifters brought back jungler Théo ‘Sheo’ Borile for this tournament, but he couldn’t help the team find its first win of Spring.
Fnatic dominated the opening game with some beautiful play, but Shifters managed to respond and force a game three.
However, Fnatic bet on scaling and managed to effectively nullify Shifters’ snowball comp to easily turn the match in their favour.
Shifters still put up a fight, with Park “Paduck” Seok-hyeon playing a fight brilliantly, which led to both teams getting aced.
But in the end, Fnatic were able to take the win, and will now face their old rivals G2 Esports.
SK dominate Team Heretics
SK Gaming returned to winning ways with an easy 2-0 against Team Heretics.
Both teams have been eliminated from the LEC Spring Playoffs and needed a response here to try and save their seasons.
For the qualifiers, SK has benched underperforming Adam ‘LIDER’ Ilyasov in favour of Seo ‘SlowQ’ Ye-bit, and it seems to have paid off.
Meanwhile, Heretics appear to be in big trouble. In the second match, they had built up a lead and looked set to take Soul point.
Yet, they somehow allowed SK to secure the Drake and then donated three kills by getting caught in the bot lane soon after.
From there, Heretics completely fell apart and SK stomped with 28 kills to 8.
SK will now face possibly the most in-form team in EMEA, Karmine Corp, in the next round.
Karmine Corp just qualified for the LEC Spring Playoffs and remains undefeated this split.
Which EMEA teams do you expect to qualify for the Esports World Cup? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
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