Despite scare, Fnatic drops Origen 3-2 to win the 2015 EU LCS Summer Split

Origen may have snapped Fnatic's historic win streak at the 2015 EU LCS Summer Split Finals in Stockholm, Sweden, but one defeat wasn't enough to keep Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim and his team down. Fnatic rallied back to take the series 3-2, and in doing so, secured 1st place in the Summer Split and a top seed in the 2015 World Championship. Immediately following the victory, as the final bits of silver ticker tape fluttered to the floor of Hovet Arena, we talked to Fnatic's team captain YellOwStaR and AD carry Martin "Rekkles" Larsson about the hard-fought Finals.

A distinct pattern could be seen throughout the five-game series, with both Fnatic and Origen adapting to previous team compositions and trying their best to subvert them. The dread pirate Gangplank was a popular pick, being alternatively picked or banned in every game. No champion was more contested than Lulu, however, whose synergy with hard carries made her the most popular girl on the Rift.

By Game 4, Origen was stealing almost all of Fnatic's successful picks and using the champions against them. It was in this game that Origen's ADC, Jesper "Niels" Svenningsen, demonstrated his true abilities on Tristana, taking it out of the hands of Rekkles, who had earned a Pentakill on the Yordle Gunner earlier in the series.

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"I had both family and friends here watching live and I feel like pretty much every Swede is like a friend of mine," says Rekkles. "It just feels really cool to play here...I got a Pentakill against Unicorns in the Semifinals and that felt good, but nowhere near in comparison to this."

Tension, excitement and passion filled the sold-out crowd in Hovet Arena as the series’ momentum shifted repeatedly. Fans clapped their hands over their mouths in nervous anticipation, looking almost afraid to watch the action play out. And the excitement reached frankly ridiculous levels as Game 5 got underway. Attendees at the 2015 NA LCS Playoffs at Madison Square Gardens in New York were even tuning in to watch the end of the European festivities. YellOwStaR's Tahm Kench didn't allow them to gobble up Game 4, so according to the team captain, they thought it'd be best to return to what Fnatic knows best: an aggressive hard-engage composition.

"We were going back to our old style that we are most comfortable playing with - hard engage and trying to finish the game within maybe 30 minutes," says YellOwStaR. "But they somehow held against us and it was really hard. We took so many Barons and we couldn't close out the game. They made a mistake, I think, because they were not patient enough. They wanted to finish the game and we found an opportunity."

"When I got a pick on Azir, I started to be really confident," YellOwStaR continues. "I didn't know if we'd win or if we'd lose, but then when we started attacking the mid tower, I was like, 'We did it, guys! We did it!' We were super happy, and we just realized that we were winning. I even made the safe call to just get all the inhibitors but the guys on the team were all like, just finish!"

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With their win, Fnatic will be heading to Korea to bootcamp before they hit the 2015 World Championship. And both teammates agreed they discovered new things from the Finals that they'll take with them before stepping onto the international stage. "We definitely learned a lot about team compositions and drafting in this series that was really important," said the 2015 Summer Split MVP.

But for Rekkles, he thinks Fnatic learned an even more crucial lesson. "Honestly I think the most important thing from this series was that we lost a game. Because if you went into Worlds and you were 24-0, the amount of pressure would be way too high," the AD carry says. "The adaptation between games, and the feeling of actually losing, having to change things rather than just saying, ok this works, ok this works, ok this works. It's nice to be able to say ok, this doesn't really work against this. We learned a lot of valuable things and then we just have to practice hard."

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Fnatic will be joined at the 2015 World Championship by H2K, who have the second highest number of Championship Points in the EU LCS after their victory against the Unicorns of Love yesterday. With two of the EU spots in the 2015 World Championships now cemented in place, only one more remains up for grabs. Both Origen and the Unicorns of Love, along with Roccat and Giants Gaming, have a chance of getting to the global tournament by winning the Regional Qualifiers, which begin on August 29. Yet judging from today's performance, Origen will be a tough boss to beat in the Regional Qualifiers gauntlet.

And while the other teams head to the Qualifiers, Fnatic's bootcamp begins in just a few days. "We're ready!” says YellOwStaR with a grin. “We're really excited!"