Team Heretics went against all odds in the opening round of LEC 2023 Winter Groups and forced Team Vitality to three maps (1-2), but that was largely because Vitality’s bottom lane hadn’t had the best showing on the day. The main thing to take away from that series was Heretic’s limited champion pool, and we’re looking at support Mertai “Mersa” Sari, who only seems to know how to play either engage supports or Heimerdinger.

Heretics’ next opponents, SK Gaming, kicked off LEC Winter 2023 group stage with a rough loss against KOI (0-2), who outmatched them across all positions. There’s no harm in that defeat, and even though SK were the clear second-best team on the day, they had their moments.

SK Gaming and Heretics are not even close to LEC title contenders, both lacking the talent to take on the top dogs, but we’re leaning more toward SK Gaming for this affair. They have their issues but considering Heretics’ draft weaknesses, SK should edge out a win.

Astralis lost against MAD Lions on Sunday (1-2), but they had their chances to come out ahead. The first map was very close, but due to poor decision-making Astralis lost a team fight, a Baron buff, and the game. They came back in the second map, but only because MAD were taking bad teamfights, so it was more the Lions playing with their food before closing out the series 2-1.

Team BDS had a similar experience in the first round. They lost against G2 Esports (1-2), and while BDS won the second map, that shouldn’t have happened. G2 Esports looked a bit too confident and gave up early kills, which snowballed the game, handing BDS a free map win.

BDS and Astralis were both gifted a map in their round one games, but we still saw more from Team BDS, who are also 1-0 up in the head-to-head. Astralis can be dangerous if you give them space, but we have no confidence in this team and their decision-making.

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