SK Gaming vs FC Schalke 04

What a strange way to start off the day. One could say that it's quite an anticlimactic prologue, but it should entertain nonetheless. These two teams are by no means behemoths, but they still deserve our attention, at least to a certain degree.

Perhaps the most important thing about this one is the fact that there's nothing on the line other than redemption. Neither Schalke 04 nor SK Gaming can reach the playoffs with just two and a half weeks of regular season play left. It's literally impossible, which means they're just fighting for scraps. Who'll finish eighth? Ninth? It's a trivial thing for us, but for these two teams this is, in a way, still a do or die kind of thing. They've invested months of their lives, they've played and practiced to the best of their ability and the fact that they failed to deliver shouldn't diminish their valiant (albeit optically underwhelming) efforts.

They still want to make use of their time in the Spring Split, to improve and perhaps synergize a bit better. They knew the odds even mere weeks ago so the fact that they're out of the running for playoffs probably didn't surprise them that much, if at all.

Schalke has been looking fairly good overall. If we factor in the way they played just weeks ago it's fair to say that they've improved tenfold in a fairly short amount of time. Sadly, it just wasn't enough. It also seems like they're just not good enough neither individually nor as a five-man unit to compete at the highest of levels. Heck, at the most mediocre of levels as well. Abbedagge has been looking like an amateur over the last couple of weeks and the same goes for Lurox. Sometimes they're okay, they're acceptable and are good enough for the job, but other times they're just so bafflingly bad and out of sync with the rest of the team. Unfortunately, the latter became far more frequent as the split progressed.

Odoamne and Innaxe are playing exceptionally well but they can't 2 v. 8, no matter how hard they try. There's a lot to like with this Schalke line-up, but they're just not strong enough to become a mid-tier contender.

Fortunately, they have SK Gaming as their opponents, so it's not like they'll have to be clean in execution or dominant to a mind-blowing degree to get the win. Instead, they just need to be okay. Nothing more, nothing less. No egregious mistakes, and a fairly solid mid game should be more than enough to get the win against a team like SK. Now, make no mistake, SK have improved as well, but not in any flashy way. They just cleaned up their early game which, to be fair, was abysmal from the very get-go. Despite this, improved early play and macro aren't enough. Schalke have more tools to work with, their drafts are better, Odoamne has been hardcarrying like a madman, and their team fighting is also head and shoulders above anything SK Gaming have to offer.

Because of this, we're siding with Schalke on this one. All of that said, this *is* a clash between two underwhelming bottom-tier dwellers, so anything can happen.