Gamers2 ascend and Gambit defend in the 2016 EU LCS Spring Promotion Tournament

Riot·Sep 6, 2015·0 votes·16,059 views

There are two sides of every story, and in the 2016 EU Spring Promotion Tournament, those sides are polar opposites. Of the four teams competing, two were only three wins away from realizing their ultimate dream: the opportunity to play in the in the EU LCS. On the other side were the EU LCS defenders, whose Summer Split performances forced them to defend their EU LCS spots.

We're all Gamers2

Gamers2 officially joined the ranks of Europe's elite after defeating one of the most storied franchises in the LCS, SK Gaming. The thrilling series went the distance, and Gamers2 narrowly avoided the threat of a reverse sweep from SK by clinching Game 5.

Here's the newly promoted Gamers2 roster:

Top - Lennart "SmittyJ" Warkus
Jungle - Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek
Mid - Luka "Perkz" Perković
AD carry - Jesse "Jesiz" Le
Support - Glenn "Hybrid" Doornenbal

Throughout the 2016 EU Challenger Series Summer Split, Gamers2 was one of the most consistent performers, finishing the Summer Round Robin with an 8-2 record and the No. 1 seed headed into the Playoffs. Despite their wins, Gamers2 had no reservations about shuffling around their roster mid-season until it was just right.

"With every swap we were were just getting stronger and stronger," reflects mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perković.

The most impactful change to the Gamers2 lineup came in the form of former Unicorns of Love jungler, Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek, who would square off against a familiar face in SK's renowned jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen in the 2016 EU LCS Promotion Tournament. Kikis, who is no stranger to guiding Challenger teams into the LCS, went the route of jungle assassin for most of the series. He locked in Kha'Zix for the first four games which worked early on, finishing 10/1/6 in the Game 2 victory.

As the series progressed though, SK were able to adapt to the fast-paced playstyle and consistent champion picks of Gamers2, and evened up the series at two-apiece.

"In a Best of 5, especially when it's a Challenger team versus an LCS team, they have a lot of time to figure out how we play. We played the same stuff for four games...and then we thought okay we need to change something," explains Kikis.

Gamers2 switched up its bans, put Kikis on Lee Sin, and moved its carry threat into the top lane by way of Lennart "SmittyJ" Warkus' Ryze. The Game 5 adaptation worked perfectly and Gamers2 dealt the relegating blow to SK Gaming in under 27 minutes, joining Team Dignitas EU as the newest member of the 2016 EU LCS Spring Split.

The Red Brick Wall

One stalwart of the LCS that did not flinch when faced with the threat of relegation was Gambit Gaming. Having already battled through the Promotion Tournament before, Gambit had the experience necessary to make swift work of the wiley mousesports.

Good old Gambit:

Top - Lucas "Cabochard" Simon-Meslet
Jungle - Danil "Diamondprox" Reshetnikov
Mid - Felix "Betsy" Edling
ADC - Kristoffer "P1noy" Albao Lund Pedersen
Support - Eduard "Gosu Pepper" Abgaryan

"The first game was a bit messy, but after [that] we got a lot of confidence going into the rest of the series and it was also cleaner playing the game. We played a lot as a team and that was really great," commented Gambit's AD carry Kristoffer "P1noy" Albao Lund Pedersen.

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While they were heavy favorites coming into this match, Gambit proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they still have the makings of a strong LCS squad. Lucan "Cabochard" Simon-Meslet, Gambit's star top lane talent, had a particularly impressive showing in the Promotion Tournament, skipping his way to a Quadra kill on Fizz at 22 minutes in Game 2.

Despite Gambit's decisive victory, mousesports have a lot to be proud of this season. They entered the Challenger Series Summer Playoffs with the fourth and final seed, but managed to 2-0 the newly minted EU LCS squad Gamers2 in the Semifinals, and took Challenger Series Champions Dignitas EU all the way to Game 5 in the Finals.

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Against Gambit, mousesports repeatedly chose compositions that relied on their ability to snowball the early game. The EU LCS veterans on Gambit were having none of it though, and once they gained an edge in a game they extinguished mousesports ability to make anything productive happen.

Gambit now look forward to a clean slate as they enter the 2016 EU LCS Spring Split, eager to fix the problems that lead them to this point. P1noy's return from the NA Challenger team Winterfox to the Gambit roster showed great promise, as he had a combined score of 10/3/27 during the course of these three games. P1noy attributes his solid performance to the fact that he's back where he belongs.

"I thought I got worse [in NA], so it was really great coming back and scrimming with an LCS team and scrimming Origen and Fnatic, and feeling better about myself as an individual. It was really cool," says P1noy.

Next up is the 2016 North American LCS Spring Promotion Tournament. Be sure to tune in on Sunday, September 6 at 12 PM PDT to find out who will stay, and who will go in the 2016 NA LCS. The action will be available right here on Lolesports.

17 Comments

Ale non è maleSep 6, 20155 votes

#FreeSven

I'm curious to see how he would perform in a team with much more individual talent than SK has ever had, he has always been regarded as the best jungler in EU before reignover came and even after that he was top 2/3 depending how you rank Kikis, but his team never did manage to challenge the best teams (ala TL/H2k) despite him being capable to play in a coordinated manner with his team and not caring only about himself like, for example, a Forg1ven I'd be curious to see him landing in a top team replacing a not so good jungler (h2k/loulex, tsm/santorin or even replacing hai retiring in c9 - not that hai is bad at all overall, but is not jungler main mechanically -) and how he would end up performing

EmoxesSep 6, 20152 votes

So he could replace Loulex, since H2K have been trying out other junglers... but Santorin I don't think is going anywhere, as TSM are probably looking at Dyrus and Wildturtle (or at least giving him motivation to be better, or possibly a two adc type thing similar to SKT's 2 mid strategy). As for Hai, C9 is going to do everything they can to keep him in their roster, and if he does go back to mid Meteos will probably take back the jungler role... there are rumors that Hai may even switch to support and Lemon may leave the team... either way, unlikely that Sven lands here.

So other than H2K, lets see where he could land, because he probably is the only guy on SK that could find a job on another team (unless Freddy could return to his old form).

Elements: This is a team that was once the best team in EU, now hovering around playoff material, Sven could get them there. He is probably an improvement over Dexter.

Unicorns: I believe the Unicorns made a mistake in giving up Kikis, and H0ro hasn't shown great results. If they decide to have another jungle shuffle (and Sven can play meta viable champs, which is what they seem to be looking for) they could try Sven... and this would be pretty ironic considering he got kicked out by Kikis.

CLG: Alright, so we know that they are the number 1 team in NA, but after worlds (depending on how they do), they may look for a minor change to put themselves to the next level (like Fnatic by replacing Steelback with Rekkles again). Xmithie has received some criticism as being the weakest link in CLG. If their organization believes this, Sven could be that piece to send them to the next level.

Dignitas: They have been swapping junglers quite a bit recently, and I'm not convinced they are completely sold on Helios. If they want to swap again, Sven would almost certainly be an upgrade for them.

Gaxx DSep 6, 20152 votes

Let's be fair - Dignitas is a trash team. So long as assasin mids are out of meta, Shiphtur doesn't perform. He's not good enough to make assasins viable if they're out of meta (unlike Westdoor for example). And the rest of the team is just awful. Svenskeren's been trying to carry SK for the entire split, and I don't think he wants to land on the team with bad players, where he'd have to do it again. Elements is a big question mark, since noone knows who will be on that team come spring split, unless they change their policy of "let's replace players every 3 weeks". I doubt he'd want to be on a team that does that. I wouldn't bet on Unicorns either. It's quite obvious, that in current meta Vizicsacsi is completely lost (and he was such a great top laner in spring, but that means he's not versatile enough), and Vardags and Hyllisang don't perform as good as they should. Right now it's safe to say, that PoE is the only good player on the team, and considering how he's been performing, he might wanna leave himself for a better team.

H2K is the most probable choice for him, since swapping the weakest jungler in EU LCS for one of the best would make them a serious contender for the title. CLG could be a viable choice, but I doubt DL's shotcalling would mesh well with Sven's agressive playstyle. He's playing more around his solo lanes and invading enemy jungler, rather than sitting botlane.

Ale non è maleSep 6, 20152 votes

[{quoted}

I wouldn't bet on Unicorns either. It's quite obvious, that in current meta Vizicsacsi is completely lost (and he was such a great top laner in spring, but that means he's not versatile enough), and Vardags and Hyllisang don't perform as good as they should. Right now it's safe to say, that PoE is the only good player on the team, and considering how he's been performing, he might wanna leave himself for a better team.

I completely disagree on Vizi being lost in the current meta. After all, despite comunication problem and get a jungler that performed in a terrible way like H0R0, they got 4th place in RS and beat pre-gauntlet ROC, so they can't be that bad that PoE is their only good player I think that Vizi real problem is that losng Kikis he has lost the guy that backed him up in teamfights (and the same was true the other way around, eh), so he is losing a lot of efficacy in what he was doing previously together with kikis. Heck, even in the few games he played with gillius which is, even if far weaker, is similar to kikis as long as game style goes, Vizi suddenly looked vastly ebtter than what he looked alongside H0Ro, so clearly it is not a lost of mechanicals skills or lack of adaptation to the meta but just the loss of a fantatsic synergy he had with his jungler and his whole team that suddenly turn in a terrible thing

Sven on uoL with the current roster except with an ADC that is not terrible like vardags and fit the rest of the team? They are suddenly ahead of OG in EU

Gaxx DSep 6, 20151 votes

Vizi didn't have issues in teamfights, at least that wasn't the only issue. If you remember spring split he was the guy that would usually destroy his lanning oponent, snowball the lane and turn into one of the team carries. He'd often do that without involvement of Kikis, kinda like Soaz does sometimes. Also they got 4th spot without H0R0, he played first games with them during play-offs. And Roccat vs UOL in play-offs is no indication whatsoever - both teams played horribly back then. Anyway, Vizi didn't perform during summer split at all, even when Kikis was still on team, so you can't really use that as an excuse. I really like Vizicsacsi and I hope he goes back to his spring split form, but right now he's a hit and miss player, and if you wanna be contender, you can't have players like that on your team. It's really better to have a solid laner who even if he loses his lane is still relevant, than a player who either hard wins or loses the lane, which turns him into carry or a useless 5th player of the team. You win about 50% games like that, and that's UOL's record. Not good enough if you ask me.

Also the roster alone doesn't make a good team. What Unicorns need is a dedicated shotcaller, not a "democratic shotcalling" like they're calling it, because what they play is solo queue. They're winning the lanes, snowball and win the games, or lose and have no clue what to do against organized team that comes into the game with a plan.

Ale non è maleSep 7, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Gaxx D,realm=EUW,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=Uu92lTO0,comment-id=00030000000000000000,timestamp=2015-09-06T22:45:24.737+0000)

Vizi didn't have issues in teamfights, at least that wasn't the only issue. If you remember spring split he was the guy that would usually destroy his lanning oponent, snowball the lane and turn into one of the team carries. He'd often do that without involvement of Kikis, kinda like Soaz does sometimes. Also they got 4th spot without H0R0, he played first games with them during play-offs. And Roccat vs UOL in play-offs is no indication whatsoever - both teams played horribly back then. Anyway, Vizi didn't perform during summer split at all, even when Kikis was still on team, so you can't really use that as an excuse. I really like Vizicsacsi and I hope he goes back to his spring split form, but right now he's a hit and miss player, and if you wanna be contender, you can't have players like that on your team. It's really better to have a solid laner who even if he loses his lane is still relevant, than a player who either hard wins or loses the lane, which turns him into carry or a useless 5th player of the team. You win about 50% games like that, and that's UOL's record. Not good enough if you ask me.

Also the roster alone doesn't make a good team. What Unicorns need is a dedicated shotcaller, not a "democratic shotcalling" like they're calling it, because what they play is solo queue. They're winning the lanes, snowball and win the games, or lose and have no clue what to do against organized team that comes into the game with a plan.

Vizi has lost some confidence overall in his game, because he knows he doesn't have a guy that can back him-up in fights and can't even help him if he fails in goes trading aggressively early and thus get a disadvantage. Meta shift didn't help him as he shined on tanks, but most of the split was played on tanks and the overall performance decreased. And in the etnire split that was miscommunication and not good synergy for UoL, so even though Kikis was still physycally with them and few times they managed to find the old spring form, this fact can't be really discounted when looking especially at Vizi (and obviously to the rest of the team) performance Vizi is imho overall solid even if he goes slightly behind in lane as long as he can coordinate with his jungler and with PoE UoL get 4th place WITH H0R0 since they beat Roccat in summer playoffs quarterfinals when H0R0 was yet in the team, even though they won in a really ugly fashion, so definitively PoE isn't the only good player they had in summer as they got however that 4th place even if playing with terrible synergy and a bad jungler in playoffs

Also, to be noted, Unicorns shotcalling was "democratic" but Kikis was carrying large part of the burden alongside vizi, so of course one of the trait they must look at for a jungler is a guy with at least decent shotcalling abilities that can synergize with Vizi. Find this jungler in FA or through the actual roster subs (Airwaks, or even switching Vizi to jungle and bring Kubon on top lane), then they are fine as well as Vizi

Ale non è maleSep 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

So he could replace Loulex, since H2K have been trying out other junglers... but Santorin I don't think is going anywhere, as TSM are probably looking at Dyrus and Wildturtle (or at least giving him motivation to be better, or possibly a two adc type thing similar to SKT's 2 mid strategy). As for Hai, C9 is going to do everything they can to keep him in their roster, and if he does go back to mid Meteos will probably take back the jungler role... there are rumors that Hai may even switch to support and Lemon may leave the team... either way, unlikely that Sven lands here.

So other than H2K, lets see where he could land, because he probably is the only guy on SK that could find a job on another team (unless Freddy could return to his old form).

Elements: This is a team that was once the best team in EU, now hovering around playoff material, Sven could get them there. He is probably an improvement over Dexter.

Unicorns: I believe the Unicorns made a mistake in giving up Kikis, and H0ro hasn't shown great results. If they decide to have another jungle shuffle (and Sven can play meta viable champs, which is what they seem to be looking for) they could try Sven... and this would be pretty ironic considering he got kicked out by Kikis.

CLG: Alright, so we know that they are the number 1 team in NA, but after worlds (depending on how they do), they may look for a minor change to put themselves to the next level (like Fnatic by replacing Steelback with Rekkles again). Xmithie has received some criticism as being the weakest link in CLG. If their organization believes this, Sven could be that piece to send them to the next level.

Dignitas: They have been swapping junglers quite a bit recently, and I'm not convinced they are completely sold on Helios. If they want to swap again, Sven would almost certainly be an upgrade for them.

H2K: Everyone all seem to agree would be good fit

TSM: Santorin is just not proactive and too reactive for their team who yet has a top laner that usually work from the back foot given how the tactic is leave Dyrus alone and try to get fed other lanes. With the actual line-up Sven would be a HUGE improvement. Having said so, if Dyrus is retiring, I could see them waiting for choosing their new top laner before doing changes in the jungle (if Turtle goes is replaced by Keith and game style doesn't change much)

C9: Hai isn't going to play in next season. He is obviously not returning mid, and the voices that say he is going to play sup are just coming out of nowhere. After the win in the gauntlet, he answered in the post-series interview with what was a bit of a joke along the lines of "they are not allowing me to retire" and even their owner words basically suggested that Hai get back from retirement to do a favor to him an dhte whole organization to avoid relegation and they got surprised in the amount of success they had. Meteos is going to play with the renewed C9 Challanger team because he need to find confidence back, so they got to search a jungler. And they got to search other pieces too, so there is nothing that prevent them to start from a carry trio of Sneaky-Incarnati0n-Sven if they can find two supportive players at top lane and support. i don't think Sven will land there because probably C9 is going to look at NA scene first before heading again to EU free agents and risk to got throghout what they went with Incarnati0n adaptation, so it is an unlikely destinatiion, but could really well work

Elements: I hope he doesn't land there. Elements problem is clearly Froggen mindset first, and everything else later, and get another prima-donna as far as importance goes could just lead to bad team environment. So no

Unicorns: They didn't let Kikis go, it was kikis that decided to leave because divergences in the view with the org. H0R0 has sucked so far, imho, and I don't think he is really that good of a jungler as various teams rate him...by the way, for them it is true the same thing that is ture for TSM. They have a BIG problem on ADC position with vardags, so before decide with which kind of jungler settle, they got to find a capable player at ADC having the courage to dump Vardags, and then see what they'll get. Sven would be again theoretically good, but it can't be said for sure

CLG: i don't think they have any interest in breaking up the synergy that put them at the top of NA, at least not before they eventually fail at Worlds and in subsequent NA split, so I don'tm think they change line-up before 2016 Summer Split if everything go real bad in the mean time - and I don't think it will go bad, at least in NA -...and by that time Sven would yet be in a LCS team, so I don't think Sven to CLG is even remotely a possibility

Dignitas: is not going to be top notch with the actual line-up by adding Sven alone, so I don't think it make any sense for Sven to go there where there are so many better teams that are searching a jungler to put them to the top of the standings

warpedmindSep 6, 20151 votes

hai will never replace incarnati0n though

EleshakaiSep 8, 20151 votes

I think Elements is going to stay on the bottom unless they make the TSM decision and have their old midlaner step out of the team and work on the admin side.

I think C9 would do really well with Hai as support and Lemon switching to a coaching role... Lemon's a good player, but I think he'd be an even better coach.

TurquoiseYoshiSep 6, 20153 votes

I kinda hope Svenskeren comes back to the LCS so we have 2 EU LCS junglers named Dennis.

Coincidentally, my name is Dennis and I main jungle.

ShadowFiend812Sep 6, 20151 votes

Little typo Jesiz is no longer Jesiz he's jesse now

TrollFan01Sep 6, 20152 votes

Jesse* You forgot to captionalize the "J"

ShadowFiend812Sep 6, 20153 votes

Sorry kept having spelling errors with Jesiz due to auto correct on my phone so it didn't register Jesse is a name I guess

TrollFan01Sep 6, 20151 votes

Good for G2 finally making it into the LCS. First promotion only chance they needed. That's pretty damn good showing after 2 years and 4 splits.

FurankiSep 6, 20151 votes

Nothing really surprising with SK. I remember how they had done well in Season 4 and got to worlds but at worlds they did a 180 and were obliterated. After that they just seemed to not be the same. As for Gambit, it would have been nice to see them gone with how weak their performance has been for some time now, but I guess mousesports did not want to be in the LCS with their weak performance against a determined Gambit.

Hopefully this performance switches today for the NA Promo matches and Coast fails to get back to the LCS while Imagine picks up a spot.

KaxiSep 6, 20151 votes

Actually, with the Jesiz-mid and CP-ADC, SK didn't lose a single game when they had Sven in their lineup. If you recall, Sven was banned from like 4 games in their groups stage for racism, and they finished 2-4 in said groups when Sven returned, even knocking a game off TSM (who took a game off one of the Samsung squads). So, in their S4 Worlds state, SK could compete. I believe that Forg1ven hurt them in the Spring because they didn't really need to evolve; they just became a Forg1ven-and-win team. They didn't need to get better, and when the swap back to CP came in, they weren't nearly at the same level they were a year beforehand, despite Fox being an upgrade from Jesiz; they just didn't grow as a team.

So, while I was hoping G2 would upserp SK, I was not going to be surprised if the veterans on SK held strong.

TrollFan01Sep 7, 20151 votes

If Dyrus really does retire after this year I wonder if TSM might pick up "Steady Freddy" as he's sorta like Dyrus in that regard. He won't always be flashy but he'll get the job done.