SK Gaming vs Origen

For our second match of the day we have a rather uninteresting clash between Origen and SK Gaming. In many ways, this is about as meaningless a match-up as you can get (at this point in time), but it should still be a somewhat entertaining one nonetheless.

These two teams find themselves on opposite ends of the LEC spectrum, with Origen being a Top 3 contender, and SK Gaming being, well, abysmal. They've done very little over the last seven and a half weeks to warrant any benefit of the doubt and are rightfully considered as one of the worst teams in the region. There's just nothing positive that can be highlighted, other than a couple of standout moments which were simply too few and far between. They're abysmal on an individual level, and perhaps equally as bad (if not even worse), as a five man unit. There's not even a single reason for optimism as far as SK Gaming is concerned. They have three games left to play and with nothing on the line, you can expect a fairly meek and unmotivated SK Gaming to show up on stage. Well, that's the same SK we've been seeing for weeks, but the point still stands.

Opposite them, we have Origen. The talented, veteran-led challengers wasted little time yesterday in a fairly solid showing against Team Vitality. That said, things didn't start off that well. They gave Vitality an early lead, they were always on the backfoot, slow to react and respond for the first ten or so minutes of the game. Fortunately, Vitality don't know what to do with a lead, primarily because they rarely have one. Origen simply waited things out, played to their strengths, accumulated as much gold as possible and then fought once they reached their power spikes. As always, Vitality made egregious mistakes at the worst possible moments which not only allowed Origen to equalize the gold tally but even take control of the game.

In many ways, it was a much sloppier showing than most of us expected. Was the change to home play to blame? Or did they slack off a bit during the last two weeks? No one's quite sure, but they're still the third best team in the region and are basically a lock for the playoffs. They're up against SK Gaming next which, to be fair, should be an even easier challenge than Team Vitality.