ROTTERDAM -- It took less than two hours, 30 minutes for G2 Esports to dismantle Origen 3-0 and win the League of Legends European Championship's 2019 Spring Split title. In front of a sell-out crowd at the Ahoy Rotterdam, G2 Esports beat two records on the way to securing their fifth title in franchise history.
At 18 minutes, 31 seconds, their Game 3 victory was the fastest victory in the history of the European League of Legends scene since the inception of the European League of Legends Championship Series (EULCS, now LEC). In addition, G2 dismantled Origen in 74 minutes, 32 seconds approximately 30 minutes less than they did in the 2017 Summer Split against Misfits Gaming.
In the process, three players have won the first trophy of their careers: support Mihael "mikyx" Mehle, top laner Martin "Wunder" Hansen, and jungler Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski -- the latter in his sixth year as a professional player.
First ever #LEC Champions 🏆 pic.twitter.com/zA19Msu6mv
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"I think I was really calm in-game by the end of Game 3 because I knew that we will win," Jankos said. "Right now, I'm not very emotional, I'm very happy that we won."
G2's sole challenge of the day consisted of a tricky Game 1. For a while, Origen and G2 traded kills and objectives, remaining relatively even for the first 25 minutes of the game. Although Origen identified Wunder's Irelia and Jankos's Olaf as the most important components of G2, they were unable to prevent them from reaching their power spikes. In fact, Jankos finished the game without dying once -- with a KDA of 2/0/9.
As the game progressed, G2's champions scaled better and had more impact as a collective than Origen's, leading to a brutal victory. After Luka "Perkz" Perkovic's Sona pinned down Patrik "Patrik" Jiru's Ezreal near Baron Nashor, the team claimed the monster's blessing, destroyed the mid lane inhibitor, and scored the game-winning team fight during a bot lane siege.
By contrast, Games 2 and 3 were landslide victories. In Game 2, G2 Esports countered Origen's Sona-Taric with one of the most creative drafts to date. Perkz and mikyx unexpectedly revived the funnelling strategy that was prevalent in the 2018 Summer Split, with Perkz's Xayah and mikyx's Rakan at the core of the strategy.
Due to the strategy's emphasis on having Xayah and Rakan in the mid lane, Jankos and Caps partnered in the bot lane using Morgana and Pyke to pressure Sona and Taric during the early stages of the game. The strategy worked, as Origen's lanes were nullified across the board.
However, their dominance in Game 2 failed to compare with their destructive power in Game 3. Led by Perkz's Neeko (9/0/3), G2 overwhelmed the side lanes, leaving Origen's jungler Jonas "Kold" Andersen and mid laner Erlend "Nukeduck" Holm unable to respond. As Origen's mistakes piled up and as Jankos's Jarvan IV enforced leads, their prospects of victory died.
G2's 3-0 victory is reminiscent of their first encounter in the playoffs against Origen during Round Two. In similar fashion, G2 struggled on the way to a Game 1 victory, then cruised in the next two games. The finals proved to be a more devastating rendition of that encounter, and G2's unpredictable drafts were a major factor in Origen's undoing.
The European Spring Split champions are set to represent their region at the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational, where the best teams of the Spring Split in each region face off. They are set to join Team Liquid and SK Telecom T1, who won the North American and South Korean championships respectively.