LoL, LEC Week 3 Power Rankings: G2 Esports shine, Misfits spring a surprise

After winning against all their serious rivals, G2 Esports finally won the right to be alone at the top. This week, Rogue and Fnatic tasted the perfectly sharpened blades of the samurais.

Against Rogue, G2 Esports certainly gave themselves a scare and faced their toughest test yet. Rogue fought back throughout the whole game and a teamfight around the Elder Dragon eventually decided the outcome of the match.

Their match against Fnatic was quite different: instead of slowly building their advantage, G2 Esports crushed Fnatic in the early-game. While they appeared to struggle during the mid-game, they slowly snowballed and took the win — notably by using Zdravets "Hylissang" Iliev Galabov's mistakes to their advantage.

Fnatic are clearly looking for their marks and didn't seem worried after their defeat against G2 Esports. Dominant against the smaller LEC teams, they were a little more hesitant against the more serious opponents.

Their match against Excel was extremely tough, and while they managed to win against them, they couldn't prevent the samurais from taking another victory.

After a catastrophic start, Fnatic managed to seize the momentum of the game, but it wasn't enough for them to beat G2 Esports. Nothing to worry about coming from a team who's still clearly looking for its style. However, Fnatic accustomed their fans to explosive finishes and the disappointment is still huge...

Misfits continue the winning streak they initiated in week two, almost making us forget their disastrous start to the season.

Where the defeat of Schalke04 was not in doubt, their victory over Origen made headlines.

Origen tried to establish their usual control over the game and was destabilized by explosive teamfights from the rabbits. In two fights, Misfits knocked down the Baron and proceeded to crush the Nexus of one of the favourite LEC teams.

It remains to be seen if they can keep this pace, but Misfits certainly deserve this place in our rankings...

By applying the same game plan, Origen almost end up becoming predictable. While this doesn't seem to do them any harm at the moment, there's no doubt that such simplicity may eventually come as an unpleasant surprise.

In each of their matches, Origen seems to struggle until the 20th or 25th minute before managing to get the upper hand with one or two decisive actions. However, while this game plan worked very well against Vitality, it completely failed against Misfits.

Origen followed the same pattern, taking control of the game at the 26th minute, but Misfits surprised them with two teamfights that lead to victory.

After an incredible start full of promises, Origen certainly had a rough week, and, sadly, it's enough to make them drop into our rankings.

After two very slow starts and without necessarily having the advantage, MAD Lions won convincingly against SK Gaming and Rogue this week. After disappointing against Excel last week, they confirm that they can compete with the mid-ranked teams and pretend to a spot in the playoffs.

With a team mainly made up of rookies, Splyce's successors seem ready to impress us — just like SK Gaming did last year.

Rogue doesn't exactly have a stellar score this week, and yet they didn't disappoint. Steven "Hans Sama" Liv's team is arguably the team that came closest to a win against G2 Esports. This fact alone prevents us from taking them down to the deep bottom of the rankings.

After their very close match against the samurais, Rogue took the bet to risk their entire draft on Hans Sama's Draven — an unsuccessful gamble that eventually lead them to lose. Sure, it brought an incredible advantage in the early game, but they were clearly unable to stop MAD Lions' frenzy in the late game.

Such a risk just after demonstrating an incredible level of play against G2 Esports was definitely unnecessary.

After defending very well against Fnatic in an ultra-aggressive match, Excel was able to win against Vitality in a much tighter match than expected.

The managed to end the week with a both convincing and disappointing 1-1 score.

Although it is clear that Excel's roster is working much better this year, Youngbuck will have to step up the game of his team if he wants to transform them into a line-up capable to reach playoffs.

SK Gaming is decidedly not ready to move up the ranks, given the ease with which MAD Lions has been able to defeat them. However, they clearly cannot be relegated lower in our rankings after their relatively straightforward victory in the German derby against Schalke 04.

Stronger than Schalke04 and Vitality, but definitely weaker than the mid-table team, they remain in the same place in our rankings, just above the teams that are currently trying to find the button that activates the parachute.

This week, Erberk "Gilius" Demir gave way to Lukas "Lurox" Thoma in the jungle of Schalke 04 — but what for?

The German club is still as bad as ever and is losing quite miserably against any kind of opposition. The hope that Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou will once again become the top ADC he used to be seems to be slipping away a little more each week, leading Schalke 04 to profound distress. The interview with Andrei "Odoamne" Pascu after their match against Misfits illustrates the dire situation in which the club is plunged.

Vitality keep losing, but they definitely fought better than the previous weeks.

Against Origen, they got caught up in the usual Hispano-Danish team strategy that we mentioned earlier. But against Excel, the bees were able to defend their game plan and the game remained very tight. The main reason for this is undoubtedly Lucas "Cabochard" Simon-Meslet who performed an extremely good splitpush performance with Gankplank.

The French organization will have to prove a lot more before moving from the last place of our standings.