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The League of Legends European Championship (LEC) will resume on Friday, June 11, with the LEC 2021 Summer. The final split of the season will run until the start of August and culminate with the playoffs later that month.
Europe’s Best LoL Teams Back In Action!
The long-awaited LEC 2021 Summer is just around the corner, with the opening matches of the split scheduled to kick off on Friday, June 11. Like in LEC Spring, the Summer split will begin with a “Super Week,” featuring 15 games across Friday-Sunday.
The LEC 2021 Summer split will run from Friday, June 11, to Sunday, August 1. The dates for the LEC Summer playoffs have yet to be announced.
MAD Lions enter the LEC 2021 Summer as the reigning champions. After they finished the regular season in third, the MAD Lions beat Rogue in the Winners’ Bracket and humiliated the reigning champions G2 Esports with 3-1 in the semi-finals. However, they saved the best for last.
In the LEC 2021 Spring grand finals, MAD Lions reunited with Rogue, who the esports bookmakers favored to win. Rogue started the series strong and picked up a 2-0 lead, needing only one more map to hoist the trophy.
It wasn’t until they were two maps down that MAD Lions woke up produced an incredible reverse-sweep to win their first LEC title. It was the first time since 2014 that a team besides Fnatic and G2 Esports won the league, forever etching MAD Lions’ name in the history of European LoL.
What’s New in LEC 2021 Summer
While the format has remained the same from the Spring split, the LEC 2021 Summer will look much different. That is primarily due to numerous roster changes that happened during the offseason.
The most impactful roster changes of the LEC offseason happened at Fnatic. The seven-time LEC champions opted for a drastic roster change, which started with the departure of their jungler Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek to Team Vitality.
Instead of signing a new jungler to fill in the void, Fnatic decided to role-swap their star top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau in the jungle. As his replacement, Fnatic signed an up-and-coming rookie Adam “Adam” Maanane.
Besides signing Selfmade from Fnatic, Team Vitality also decided to make some changes in the top and mid lane. The French team demoted their top laner Mathias “Szygenda” Jensen to the academy team and replaced him with a rookie Enzo “SLT” Gonzalez.
In the mid lane, Vitality parted ways with Aljoša “Milica” Kovandžić and replaced him with Adam “LIDER” Ilyasov, who will return the LEC. The only lane that has remained unchanged was the bottom lane, where Vitality will continue with Juš “Crownshot” Marušič and Labros “Labrov” Papoutsakis.
Perhaps most controversial were the roster changes at SK Gaming. Like Fnatic, SK Gaming role swapped their support Erik “Treatz” Wessén to jungle.
Instead of signing a new support player to replace Treatz in the bottom lane, SK Gaming did the unthinkable and decided to enter LEC 2021 Summer their coach Jesse “Jesiz” Le as the starting support player. Jesiz is a retired LoL player who last appeared on the Summoner’s Rift way back in 2018.
Who Will Win the LEC 2021 Summer?
Entering the second and final split of the 2021 LoL season are the same ten teams who battled on the Summoner’s Rift earlier in the year. Unlike how it is in the North American league, however, LEC teams will not be carrying over their record into the second split.
Even though all ten sides start the split with zero points, that doesn’t give each team an equal chance to succeed. There are only a few teams the esports bookmakers believe can win, and you can’t argue with the offered betting odds.
LEC 2021 Summer Outright Betting Odds
Odds courtesy of BetOnline Sportsbook:
- G2 Esports +175
- Rogue + 200
- MAD Lions +225
- Fnatic +1000
- Team Vitality +1600
- Schalke 04 + 3300
- Misfits Gaming + 4000
- Excel Esports +5000
- Astralis + 6600
- SK Gaming +10000
G2 Esports enter LEC 2021 Summer as the odds-on favorite to win the league. That’s fair, considering they’re the most successful European team with eight titles to their name.
Close behind are the LEC 2021 Spring finalists Rogue, followed by the reigning champions MAD Lions.
The only two remaining teams with a legitimate chance to win the league are Fnatic and Team Vitality.
For either of the two to succeed, their new signings will have to step up and prove to be an upgrade. While that might happen, a lot will have to go right for Fnatic and Vitality to upset the favorites.