The League of Legends EMEA Championship for 2023 will be the first season that will be separated into three different splits (Winter, Spring and Summer). This year will be the ninth European LoL split under the LEC banner. 10 teams will participate throughout the year, with the Winter split kicking off on January 21 and the grand final is set to be played on February 26.
There have been two team changes for the upcoming LEC season, with Misfits Gaming announcing that they had sold their LEC slot to Team Heretics, after competing in the LEC for six years. Meanwhile, KOI merged with Rogue, who are the reigning LEC Summer split champions, meaning that KOI will take over the Rogue LEC slot, with all bar-one of the players making the transition.
During the off-season, most of the teams made changes to their roster with G2 Esports and Team Vitality making the biggest moves. There were rumblings of a change for G2 after another failure at World 2022, and it wasn’t long before the team announced that the G2 Founder/CEO Carlos “ocelote” Rodriguez Santiago and Jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski were leaving the team after over five years of service.
Team Vitality was the other organisation to make big moves in the off-season, adding a new Top, AD Carry and Support, along with a new head coach, after the team finished seventh and missed the playoffs in the LEC Summer 2022.
Esports betting sites have three teams very close at the top of the market, with G2 Esports slightly favoured to win the LEC Winter at $3.50, just ahead of KOI and Fnatic at $3.75 apiece.
LEC Winter 2023 Tip – KOI
The 2023 LEC Winter split will be the debut season for KOI, after they merged with the 2022 LEC Summer split champions and LoL Worlds 2022 quarterfinalists, Rogue. Of the five players on the Rogue roster, all bar one of the members made the transition over to KOI, with Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu making the move to Excel Esports. KOI went and acquired Mathias “Szygenda” Jensen as their top-laner from Vitality.Bee, to round out their five-man roster.
Coming off a very successful end to 2022, this KOI roster will be looking to begin their own era, with the likes of G2 Esports and Fnatic going through somewhat of a transition phase. With most of the Rogue roster making the transition, it will allow Szygenda to practise and familiarise himself with his new teammates over the off-season. If he can find his feet quickly and settle in early, it will play a major factor in their success for the early part of 2023.
After finishing second in Group C behind the eventual Worlds Champions, DRX, and being knocked out in the quarterfinals by a very good JD Gaming team, KOI (Rogue) would have learnt a lot from playing against the best teams in the world. If they take some of what they learnt into the new year and continue their high level of play, they should prove a hard team to beat this split.
LEC Winter Outright Winner – KOI
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