LEC Winter 2024 regular season results

The group stage of LEC Winter is already over, just two weeks after it started. The playoffs are scheduled to be played between February 3 – 18 and will include the top eight teams.

For Rogue and Karmine Corp, who finished the regular season with a record of 2 W – 7 L, LEC Winter has already ended. But for G2 Esports (7 W – 2 L), Team BDS (7 W – 2 L), and six other competitors, it merely began.

The next several weeks will decide the winner. The prize money is modest, but the ticket to Mid-Season Invitational and the 120 points are extremely valuable. All of the top eight teams will be rewarded with points. But only the winner will go to MSI and only the top four teams will receive any money.

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Check out @G2Caps‘ Akali in this week’s #LEC x @esportsantander Mechanics! pic.twitter.com/SAbDyoTiAw

— LEC (@LEC) January 30, 2024

Complete results

For the top two teams, G2, and BDS, the first part of this split went really well. But notice that not even these two teams did not manage to win every match. The best-of-one format is unforgiving.

Combined with the fact that many participants are relatively close to each other in terms of skill, it led to a situation in which even the best teams struggled at times.

The difference between the first team in the league and the 8^th is just three victories. GIANTX, Team Heretics, and Team Vitality all have a record of 4 W – 5 L. Just one step above them are three other teams, Fnatic, MAD Lions, and SK Gaming, all of whom finished the regular season with 5 W – 4 L.

But all of this is not relevant anymore, because the playoffs format in Europe does not take into account the teams’ position except to determine the seeding for the opening matches. Other than that, everyone starts in the upper bracket and receives the same opportunities to win.

If Heretics, for instance, prove to be strong enough, nothing can stop them from reaching the Grand Final.

At this point, every match is a best-of-three series. And starting with the third round of the playoffs, matches will be best-of-five. That’s a big difference compared to the regular season. Going from bo1 to bo5 can result in huge discrepancies.

In a bo1 match, the underdog is much more likely to play risky in an attempt to surprise the better team. But in a bo3 and a bo5, winning with this kind of strategy is far less likely.

Header: Riot Games