Giants Gaming and Roccat each find themselves just outside a playoff spot with only two weeks remaining in the split. Both teams are on opposite trajectories, with Roccat coming off a 0-2 weekend and Giants coming off a 2-0 week 7.
At 6-8 on the split, Roccat are one game behind Splyce for the league’s final playoff slot. Giants are 5-9 and will have to overcome a two-win deficit in two weeks if they hope to make it beyond the regular season.
More likely than not, only one of these three teams will make the playoffs. So which team has the best chance of making it?
Splyce is the easy answer. They’ve beaten both Misfits and Fnatic this season, but there’ve been dark times for them as well. They handed H2K their one and only win of the split so far and lost to Unicorns of Love earlier in the season. That means they’ve beaten the top two teams in the EU LCS and have fallen to the bottom two.
Their one game lead over Roccat in the standings is certainly a big deal, but they also have arguably the most difficult schedule of the three teams. With Roccat and Fnatic this weekend and Schalke and Giants the next, there’s a real chance of Splyce going 2-2 or worse to finish the split.
Roccat will need a major reversal of fortunes if they want any hope of making it to playoffs, and it all starts with game one when they take on Splyce. A loss would essentially seal their fate, but a win would put them in charge of their own destiny. If they finished the season a perfect 4-0, they’d be guaranteed to be at least tied for sixth at the end of the split.
It isn’t so simple for Giants. Even if they went 4-0, they’d still need some help to make it into playoffs. First of all, Roccat needs to beat Splyce. Then both Roccat and Spyce need to go no better than 1-1 over their following two games. Assuming that means Roccat went 2-1, Splyce went 1-2 and Giants went 3-0, that would leave all of those teams tied for the sixth and final playoff spot.
Multiple tiebreaker games is a real possibility at this point
Then Giants play Splyce in the last game of the season with the winner finishing at least tied for sixth, depending on the outcome of the Roccat vs Misfits match (if we’re following through with the hypothetical from above).
The bottom line is, Splyce has the simplest road to the playoffs by far, but with the way Giants have been playing, they might want to watch their back. And if Roccat can turn things around as well, then we’ll be in for one hell of a finish to the summer split.