Betting-Previews.com brings you a League of Legends betting preview and predictions for LoL European Championship (LEC) 2021 Summer Finals between Fnatic and MAD Lions, who will duke it out for the coveted LEC trophy on Sunday, August 29.
2021 LEC Summer Finals – Fnatic vs MAD Lions
When: Sunday, August 29 at 17:00 CEST
Game: Best-of Five (Bo5)
MAD Lions and Fnatic made it all the way into the LEC 2021 Summer finals, where they’ll duke it out for their eighth LEC trophy. For MAD Lions, this is their shot to go back-to-back and officially end an era of G2 and Fnatic’s domestic dominance. Meanwhile, a win for Fnatic would earn them their first trophy since LEC 2018 Summer and tie with G2 Esports as the winningest European LoL team.
A Complete Destruction
I have repeatedly said that Fnatic are not to be trusted and how they can be good but tend to throw leads and shoot themselves in the foot. At the end of the day, that trait has become synonymous with Fnatic, who beat themselves more times than their opponents.
However, you wouldn’t be able to know that had you only watched Fnatic’s game against Rogue yesterday, where they produced one of the biggest stomps we have seen this season. Fnatic demolished Rogue 3-0 and with it left a powerful statement, proving that they aren’t just “a worse version of MAD Lions”.
Just to put it into perspective how good Fnatic played, here are their performance metrics from yesterday’s clash in comparison to MAD Lions’ numbers from their meeting with Rogue:
| Team/Stats | GPR | GSPD | EGR | MLR | GD@15 |
| Fnatic | 1.64 | 13.9% | 69.9 | 30.1 | +1592 |
| MAD | -0.5 | -2.5% | 48.3 | 51.7 | -1420 |
Obviously, there is a lot more that goes into figuring out how this match will go rather than simply comparing how the teams have done against the same opponent. Regardless, the numbers above show a few characteristics we already know from both teams.
Fnatic’s Early-Game?
Fnatic are the best early-game team in the league, and there is no question about it. The amount of pressure Fnatic put on their opponents in the pre-15 minutes is awe-inspiring. Most of it has to do with their strong laning, which completely shuts down the opposing jungler, allowing Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau to farm, get ahead and have much more impact on the map.
The biggest actor in Fnatic’s strong early game is Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer, who is playing a very similar style to Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang when he won the 2019 World Championship. He sacrifices his laning phase to constantly roam around the map and help his teammates gain leads.
Most of the time, he and Bwipo will attack the bottom lane together to help Elias “Upset” Lipp get ahead, which enables Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov to start roaming mid and return the favour to Nisqy. It’s a very simple plan, but the way Fnatic make it work is just phenomenal.
Nisqy’s and Hylissang’s are spot-on, and it seems like they’re always at the right place at the right time. The only way to counter this is to have players who are just as good at roaming, but from what we’ve seen, there is no other LEC team that can match Fnatic in this department.
We also can’t forget about Adam “Adam” Maanane who isn’t afraid to give up his lane to help his teammates by teleporting bot, and while that can serve as a double-edged sword where a failed teleport loses him the lane, he often receives help from his teammates after Fnatic gain leads in mid and bottom lane.
All that I have covered here is not a secret, and anyone who has been watching Fnatic should be able to pinpoint this style of play as the main reason why Fnatic are such a deadly early-game team. In fact, there aren’t many things not to like about Fnatic in the earlier stages of the game – the problems start to surface in the mid-late game.
Or MAD Lions Mid-Late Game?
As noted before, Fnatic have often gotten ahead early and then blundered their games in the mid-late game. That often occurs because they seem to be feeling too confident in their leads and go for risky plays, which have backfired before.
That is also the main reason why I wasn’t too excited about Fnatic against Rogue, who should have been able to exploit Fnatic’s mistakes. To my surprise, however, Fnatic played out yesterday’s series perfectly and not once did I see them go for those risky plays.
Obviously, they are still Fnatic and will play very aggressively, but they seem to be far tamer than how they were earlier into the playoffs. That’s exactly the version of Fnatic we need to see today if they wish to defeat MAD Lions.
MAD Lions are not exactly a strong early-game team. In fact, they will often fall behind by several thousand gold pre-20 minutes; however, they also consistently claw their way back from those deficits.
That has to do with their excellent team fighting, strong mental and ability to punish other teams for trying too much when they feel too confident about their leads. That was most noticeable in their series against Rogue, where they came back from situations in which they shouldn’t be able to and given the stylistic matchup we have on the menu today, MAD Lions will likely have to do the exact same thing if they wish to win their second LEC trophy.
Can Fnatic complete Their Miracle Run?
Today’s LEC 2021 Summer finals will feature two teams who are in excellent form, and I fully expect to see the best game of the season. Both teams have world-class players, who are all playing out of their minds, and while there are stylistic differences, MAD and Fnatic both have strong mental and play like a solid unit – unlike most other LEC teams.
From what we know, it’s highly likely that Fnatic will gain early leads and try to close out the game before MAD Lions come online in the mid-late game. At the same time, we have seen MAD Lions play well in the early game before, while we have also seen Fnatic make comebacks in the mid-late game.
There isn’t a lot to set these two teams apart if they can show their best form. If Fnatic can recreate what they produced yesterday, I feel confident saying that this game is close to 50/50 where no result would surprise me.
Fnatic could overrun MAD Lions in the early game and out-perform them in teamfights to end the day with a sweep, or we might see Fnatic return to their old ways, make questionable plays and fall apart in the mid-late game.
Fnatic are priced as 2.16 (Pinnacle) underdogs while MAD Lions are 1.714 favourites (Pinnacle). Fnatic might have looked much cleaner yesterday; however, we can’t forget that this is still the same team that threw games where they were +6k gold ahead, so the price seems right.
If Fnatic can show the same level of stability as what they did yesterday, I wouldn’t be surprised if they win. But again, that is one big “IF”, and one game alone doesn’t prove that Fnatic are no longer the type of team that will lose from an “unlosable” position.
What I do expect, however, is plenty of kills. Neither team is afraid of fighting, and due to the stylistic matchup, it’s fair to expect this to be one of the bloodiest games of the season. A bet on over 30.5 kills at 1.83 (Bet365) is the way to go.
You could make a case for Fnatic to win the series since they completely obliterated Rogue yesterday. Having said that Rogue, seemed out of it, so I would take that result with a pinch of salt and not overreact to it.
