Jankos Elder Dragon steal leads to H2K upset win vs. EDG

Once again the 2016 League of Legends World Championships has brought us a big upset. First INTZ beat Edward Gaming — widely considered one of the tournament’s top three teams. Then, just yesterday, Albus NoX Luna became the first International Wildcard Team to reach the quarter finals of an international tournament with their second place finish in Group A. Now, during the decisive day for Group C, H2K shakes up the expected seeding by beating Edward Gaming.

The lead started early for H2K, paricularly in the toplane with Andrei “Odamne” Pascu — who would later get MVP — solo killing Edward Gaming’s Yuhao “Mouse” Chen and quickly gaining a huge CS lead. This, along side strong early pressure in midlane from Sang Wook “Ryu” Yoo, helped put H2K on the aggressive against their Chinese opponents.

Using their early lead as a springboard, H2K played a tightly controlled game with a strong focus on objectives. A huge part of this objective control came down to H2K jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski. In the final fight of the game, he managed to steal away the Elder Dragon from EDG’s Kai “ClearLove” Ming, helping H2K into the perfect position for the 4-2 teamfight that followed, and on to victory.

This win represents a big moment, not only for H2K, but for the whole of the European LCS region. After number one seed G2 dissapointed in Group A — securing only one win in an ultimately meaningless game — and Splyce going winless in week 1, and likely to stay that way in an incredibly difficult Group D, the bulk of pressure for a European team to advance from their group fell to H2K.

With this victory, H2K has placed themselves into a tie for first place in Group C with their opposition in this game EDG, and placed themselves into the best possible place to advance. Should the two teams end today with the same record, there will be a tie breaker, to decide which team will take Group C’s number one seed heading into quarter finals.