It’s week four in the League of Legends Championship Series and European teams Origin and Fnatic just smashed numerous records in one of the craziest matches in LCS history.
Fans were already excited to watch Enrique “xPeke’ Martinez, founder of Team Origin, face off against Fnatic, a team he led for many years. Origen has been struggling this season, especially after losing their starting AD Carry, and after losing the first match against Fnatic, their second didn’t look promising. Thirty-five minutes into the match, Fnatic had secured the Baron buff, giving them a major push advantage, and were primed to secure Elder Drake, which grant their team a huge advantage. Origen, recognizing the threat, pushed Fnatic off of the dragon and immediately moved to take down an inhibitor, buying themselves some breathing room.
Time and again, Origen would trade objectives to stay in the game. At 51 minutes in, xPeke and Soaz casually walked into the Fnatic base to take down two inhibitors while Fnatic secured Elder Drake. Two minutes later, Origen secured their third inhibitor while Fnatic took Baron. Origen, struggling to secure the win against the now Baron-empowered Fnatic, made a mistake and lost everyone but their mid and top laners, Tristen “PowerOfEvil” Shrage and Paul “sOAZ” Boyer. With some quick thinking sOAZ reinitiated on their enemy mid-laner, getting an important kill on the player most able to clear minions and make a game winning counter-push against Origen.
Nearly fifteen minutes later, Fnatic once again looked ready to secure a victory with a Baron-empowered Rek’sai knocking on Origen’s front door. Seizing the opportunity, sOAZ initiated a kill on Fnatic’s mid-laner, Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten, letting them take yet another inhibitor and prolonging the game even longer. At 74 minutes, after getting a Baron buff themselves, Origen nearly ends the game, taking out the last of Fnatic’s towers. But Fnatic, never a team to give up, fight them off and defend against an onslaught of minions by selling their items, buying and placing three Zz’Rot Portals, and repurchasing what they sold.
The game finally came to a climactic close here, when sOAZ and PowerOfEvil, teleporting in, rush the nexus and barely take the win over fnatic.
When all was said and done, at least two creep score records were broken, 18 inhibitors were destroyed and the match lasted 80 minutes and 28 seconds — just nine seconds from being the longest game in LCS history. xPeke had this to say about the match: “At some point, after the second or third try, I just thought that the game was never going to end.”
Congratulations to both Origen and Fnatic for putting on an amazing game of League of Legends.