When Fnatic took the stage against Rogue, many people tuned in to watch the old kings of Europe battle against one of the region’s youngest and brightest teams. In fact, their playoff battle drew in a peak viewership count of just over 556,000 people, according to analytical service Esports Charts.
This League of Legends series was a highly-anticipated meeting to see if the LEC’s first-place team could take down a former behemoth to earn their place at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately for Rogue fans, the postseason pressure was too much for the young squad and Fnatic’s superior preparation helped propel them to a stunning 3-0 sweep.
Beforehand, G2 Esports’ dominant 3-1 series win over MAD Lions held the highest peak viewership for the 2020 LEC Summer Split with just over 519,000 people watching at the same time. Again, playoff experience reigned supreme in this series as G2’s veteran lineup took down their opponents with relative ease.
Last year, Fnatic also populated the top three LEC matches for peak viewership, with playoff matches against G2 and Schalke 04 at the top. Tthe 2019 LEC Summer Finals managed to hit almost 824,000 peak viewers, according to Esports Charts.
This playoff race is one of the most exciting yet, which is why fans should expect viewership numbers to continue skyrocketing all the way to the finals. Schalke 04, for example, has an upcoming series against MAD Lions in the next part of one of the most incredible miracle runs that League fans have ever seen.
Both these teams played really well throughout the entire split, bringing in a lot of fans on their side. Fnatic was even able to secure a World Championship appearance after this match. The first game of the series saw Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek taking up popular solo queue jungler Evelynn and putting on a masterclass for Rogue, securing a double kill at five minutes with a textbook top lane counter gank. With Fnatic’s bottom lane also acquiring a two-vs-two kill in lane, it looked as though this game was over before it had even truly begun with Fnatic taking a convincing 25-minute victory.
Rogue showed a little more fire in their second game, choosing to play through the bot lane with the skirmish potential of Kalista and Blitzcrank. Although they were successful in netting Steven “Hans Sama” Liv two kills in lane, Rogue were unable to translate this early pressure into objective control, giving over Baron Nashor, Ocean Soul, and another match win to Fnatic.
In the third game of the series, Rogue’s lack of objective control once again came back to bite them. With a double kill going the way of Fnatic’s AD Carry Martin “Rekkles” Larsson within the first five minutes of the game, Rogue were left powerless. And despite a heroic attempt at a carry performance by top laner Finn Wiestål on Gangplank, Fnatic took a 3-0 victory against the first-place finishers of the regular season, earning themselves a place at Worlds and knocking Rogue into the losers bracket of the LEC playoffs.
