It might have taken Schalke 04 four long weeks, but they have finally picked up their first win of the 2020 LEC Summer Split in a match against Fnatic.
With jungler Lukas “Lurox” Thoma out due to sickness, the European League of Legends team brought in Academy jungler Erberk “Gilius” Demir to fill in for what was supposed to be one of their toughest matchups of the season. But the game seemed to go pretty smoothly for Schalke.
THE FIRST WIN FOR @S04Esports! #LEC pic.twitter.com/1Xb7eGalVd
— LEC (@LEC) July 4, 2020
Schalke played well together today, showing decisive shot-calling that we haven’t seen too much of this past split. Gilius also gave the team a shot of proactivity from the jungle, which might be what the roster needed to reach their true potential as a unit.
On the other side of Summoner’s Rift, however, Fnatic looked out of sorts with their decision-making and teamwork. Throughout the game, individual players made questionable calls and engages that led to lost teamfights. Others were simply caught out of position and disposed of by Schalke.
By the end of the match, Fnatic had only secured one kill as a team—they also only took two turrets and were down 9,000 gold as well. Their macro play wasn’t strong at all, and Schalke took advantage of every mistake they made.
The perennial LEC champions haven’t looked like themselves this entire split and are now sitting in fifth place with a lackluster 4-5 record. Although there’s still time to bring things back and turn around the season, Fnatic fans have every right to be worried after losing to the lowest team in the standings.
ADC Nihat “Innaxe” Aliev demonstrated some cool Aphelios mechanics in the game, nearly carrying his team back towards a win some weeks ago.
In a lost fight near the dragon pit where the majority of Schalke 04 were wiped out, Innaxe was left alone against four Rogue members. Thanks to his swift moves and superior mechanical skill from the ‘200 years champion’ Aphelios, he killed two members of Rogue and survived the encounter unscathed.
Aphelios has been a nuissance since his release, receiving multiple nerfs following Patch 9.24 due to his power level. Fnatic’s ADC Rekkles recently shared his opinion that older champions no longer have a place in today’s meta due to powerful new releases such as League‘s latest marksman.
The bar is simply too high for old champions to be able to deal with the newer releases. The Fnatic ADC argued that Riot should update older kits instead of releasing newer ones, otherwise League‘s older champions will never be played due to how much weaker they are fundamentally compared to newer, more complex kits.
