Origen vs Splyce

For our first match of the day, we have an exciting clash between Origen and Splyce. This isn't exactly a must watch by any means, but it is an incredibly important clash regardless. Both teams are entering the seventh week of competitive LEC play looking to make a statement, and they absolutely need to step up and claim their playoff spot.

They are, however, entering this clash with different amounts of momentum. Origen were able to create a ton of hype recently by taking down the who's who of the LEC, and they actually did look like a serious, highly capable contender. The problem is, their hype didn't last for long.

After taking G2 Esports down, they were quickly outclassed by both Misfits Gaming and Fnatic last week. It's not a shame that they lost, but the fashion in which it occurred was the shocking part. We've all seen their incredible level of play, their fantastic cohesion and capability against G2 Esports, which is exactly why everyone was shocked to see them play so badly against two teams that they should have been able to take down.

They were reactive, passive, and desperate from the very get-go. They drafted poorly and they didn't execute any of their win conditions. It was a shellacking on all fronts, and it didn't look like a clash between two mid-tier teams, but rather like a fight between the former World Championship finalists and a struggling team without any cohesion.

Their game against Misfits was a lot better, albeit still not enough. It was as if Origen regressed to their prior form, their out of sync, mechanically erroneous incarnation. They did some things right, and they definitely made it a closely contested affair. In fact, it was absolutely, mind-blowingly intense. Even though Origen lost all lanes except top, they were still able to fight back to the best of their ability.

It's impossible to really predict how strong they really are right now. Are they good? Was last week just a random plunge? Will they be back to their dominant self? Have they hit a ceiling? We simply do not know, and that's quite a big problem. This week will be make or break for Origen. They have to get back to their winning ways because the race for playoffs is incredibly close and intense. Make a mistake and you're out, and in the hyper-competitive LEC landscape, dropping games at this point in time is ill-advised, to say the least.

Splyce, on the other hand, are arguably even a bigger mystery right now. They have a slightly better win-loss record (seven wins and five losses), and they can afford to drop a game or two and still be in the running for playoffs. That said, they haven't been playing particularly well over the last couple of weeks, and that might even be an understatement. Like always, there are smaller flashes of brilliance, followed by egregious errors across the board. It's hard to pin-point where they're really making mistakes, because they're small in size but they eventually add up.

They're slow when they should be fast, they're passive when they should be the ones making a move, when they have a lead they're rarely pushing it, and they're making individual errors almost non-stop. Kobbe, in particular, hasn't been able to step up ever since the meta shifted (with patch 9.4) and that's proving to be quite a problem. He should be emboldened by the recent AD carry power spike, but it's not showing in his play.

Simply put, they're scattered across the Summoner's Rift and it's a problem. They can still get on the same page from time to time and put up a fight, which is making this clash impossibly hard to predict.

Both teams have the tools at their disposal in order to make this insanely close, but it really depends on which versions of these teams come to play. Will Splyce step up after two weeks of absolute mediocrity? Will Origen be able to fix their issues and start playing as well as they did a couple of weeks back?

We're going with Origen on this one, but not with full confidence. Anything can happen this time around, and it'll be an insanely close game of inches. Origen, however, know that the playoffs are within their reach, and they're the more capable and versatile team, which should provide them with an upper hand once they step on the Rift. Regardless, if you're making a bigger ticket then it might be best to skip this match altogether seeing how it can really go either way.