Yesterday, G2 Esports suffered a surprising defeat against Los Ratones at LEC Versus, which turned out to be the most-viewed match of the season so far.
The game between the European powerhouse and the tier-two superstar team peaked at over 500,000 concurrent viewers across platforms, according to Esports Charts. G2 struggled throughout the game, and while the loss raised eyebrows amongst fans, the team’s mid laner was not entirely surprised by the outcome.
In an interview with Esports Insider ahead of his match against Los Ratones, Rasmus ‘Caps’ Borregaard Winther revealed that G2 is “struggling a bit” this season.
Issues were on display during the game as G2 failed to find its footing and repeatedly lost key teamfights. A series of mistakes allowed Los Ratones to take control of the Rift, slowly building a lead that G2 could not recover from.
However, the one loss in LEC Versus does not tell the full story, as the best-of-one format itself has been criticised by players, including Caps.
“It’s always a bit volatile,” said the mid laner, explaining that shorter formats can quickly punish even small mistakes. He added that G2 usually feels more comfortable in longer series, where the team can afford to make “a mistake or two,” something the LEC Versus format does not allow—for now.
G2 Struggling at the Beginning of the Season
For LEC fans, it is not unusual to see G2 Esports struggle at the beginning of a season. As such, long-time viewers know better than to underestimate the team in the later stages. However, it is undeniable that, even with the same roster as last year, G2 is not fully coming together right now in the competition.
“I still feel like we are a strong team,” Caps said. “But we are just having a bit of some unfortunate games on stage.”
While G2 has at times managed to stabilise and find its way back into matches, early game mistakes and execution issues have made that process harder than expected.
According to the mid laner, G2’s rocky start to the season is usually attributed to the gameplay changes requiring players to “unlearn” and “re-learn” some strategies.
He explained: “I think it’s just that every year the game changes quite a bit. So we kind of have to re-learn some stuff, un-learn some stuff and just get good habits about how we want to play the game together.
“I think we are a good team at knowing how to improve and figuring out things together, but we don’t always come in with the highest level from the start.”
ERL Teams in the LEC
Since franchising, the LEC has not included ERL teams directly in its competition, making LEC Versus a unique experiment—or so it’s thought. According to G2’s mid laner, while the LEC Versus format brings in new faces, the idea of having ERL talent entering the top level is nothing new.
“Not necessarily ERL teams, but a lot of your players joined the LEC throughout the years. And sometimes we have teams that are almost entirely made of ERL players,” Caps said.
He also pointed out that the league has always been evolving, with new players and teams joining regularly, and so the inclusion of ERL squads in LEC Versus feels like a continuation of that growth rather than a sudden change.
Is Scrimming Important?
After its first week in the LEC Versus, Los Ratones previously complained that few-to-no LEC teams wanted to scrim against the side. That situation appears to have changed following Los Ratones’ improvements in week two, with G2 scrimming against it before the match, as confirmed by Caps.
Without mentioning details of the off-stage games, the G2 mid laner explained that scrim results are often misleading. Teams experiment, have bad days, or simply do not take scrims as seriously as stage games.
“In terms of level, it’s always hard to judge because some people just have … they have bad days, or some teams also just do a lot worse than scrims,” highlighted the player.
Maybe they’re not taking it seriously, or maybe they’re just testing something or playing some champions that we go on. There’s a million different reasons, but it definitely doesn’t translate directly to stage.”
Still, he emphasised that scrims remain crucial for learning concepts, building habits, and getting on the same page as a team, even if wins in practice do not directly translate to on-stage success in LEC Versus.
“But it’s just the result of winning some games, it does not mean, ‘oh, now you’re the best team in the world.’ It doesn’t work exactly like this,” Caps concluded.
As LEC Versus continues, G2 will have little time to dwell on its loss to Los Ratones, as it is set to face Team Vitality later today. Fans can watch the game on LoL Esports official website or on Twitch and YouTube via the LEC official channels
The post “We’ve been struggling a bit”: G2 Caps on the team’s slow start at LEC Versus appeared first on Esports Insider.
