Excel Esports CEO apologizes to LEC fans

It’s a rare sight to see an esports organization invest massively in building a top-quality roster for itself and then, instead of improving its ranking in the region, become the worst competitor.

But that’s exactly what happened to Excel Esports. This organization entered LEC in 2020 and regularly finished somewhere around fifth-eight each split. At the end of 2022, the management of the team decided to put an end to mediocrity and sign two of the best players in the region: Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu and Raphael “Targamas” Crabbe.

Both of them came from the top two LEC organizations in 2022: Rogue Esports and G2 Esports. And they were among the best players on those teams. But when they finally teamed-up and started competing for Excel Esports, nothing seemed to work anymore.

The Excel disaster

Excel started LEC Winter 2023 with a defeat against G2 Esports. The match was lost in the first 10 minutes because by the 10-minute mark, G2 already had a 2000 gold advantage. Such an advantage is huge in the early game and usually makes one of the teams unable to take successful fights after that point.

The defeat against G2 didn’t surprise that many people because G2 were regarded as the strongest team in the region. However, the next match, against KOI, was a cause for concern. Because that team was nowhere near G2’s level and Excel still lost against them.

The only victory obtained by Odoamne’s team in the first six LEC Winter matches was against Team BDS. At the time, it gave a lot of hope to Excel fans because BDS looked like a decent team. And in fact, they were. Now we know this for sure because of their current record: 4 W – 2 L.

In the next three matches, Excel played against MAD Lions, Fnatic, and Astralis. And in every single case, the battle was lost. The most painful defeat came against Fnatic. Excel had a 5000 gold lead at one point and then lost all of it in a single fight.

The CEO’s apology

Given the massive difference between what the fans expected and what their favorite team delivered, it’s completely understandable why Tim Reichert, the organization’s CEO, apologized to the fans for the failure. The players themselves felt the need to Tweet their dissatisfaction with what is happening.

It remains to be seen if Excel can make a comeback in LEC Winter in the coming weeks. Time is quickly running out for them.

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