For the new League of Legends season, Riot Games took a different approach to normal and removed pre-season, instead launching all the new content on January 10, just three days before the start of the 2024 LEC season. This has forced pro teams to change how they prepare for the first week of competition, and even G2 Esports have found some of the changes difficult.
As the most successful European League of Legends team ever and having kept their roster from last year, G2 is expected to hit the ground running when it comes to the start of the new LEC season. In the opening weekend, they have matches against Team BDS, newcomers to the league Karmine Corp and Rogue, all formidable foes but ones you would back G2 to beat. However, with the disruption to their preparation with the new release schedule, those results might not be as guaranteed as you might think.
“When it comes to figuring out a new season I usually just wait until the patch hits the live servers and spam the game as much as possible, this time around that was not possible so we had to practice beforehand in the PTR,” said Sergen “BrokenBlade” Çelik, the top laner for G2. “What usually happens is you get data from the website and see how champions are doing based on the soloq numbers so you can orient your practice on that, which in this season you can’t. So what I do is talk to other players and teammates and find inspiration and or good ideas for item builds or champions to play.”
Given the delayed launch of the new season, Riot provided pro teams with a special tournament server where they could play the new content early between themselves. It made the process easier for players to learn the new season, but it has made figuring out the best way to play harder for teams, as they do not want to reveal the best strategies to their opponents.
“At the moment we just get to play in-houses and scrims with the new patch which has been pretty fun,” said Steven “Hans Sama” Liv, bot laner for G2.”But there are not as many chances/possibilities to try new stuff. The new patch in soloq is gonna be updated soon so then maybe we will see a lot more new things.”
It’s not just the change to the release schedule that has impacted how G2 is preparing for the new LEC season, there are also the changes that the patch brings to contend with. With a brand new map, new monsters and a massive item overhaul there is a lot to learn and a week before the LEC starts the team was still getting to grips with the biggest changes.
“I think going into season 14 the biggest changes are the new walls creating a lot of new patterns for us junglers to gank or invade,” Martin “Yike” Sundelin, the G2 jungler. “Baron also has three different forms now with new terrain, so Baron Nashor will always be more interesting now, [with] new scenarios of how to steal/contest it makes it harder for the enemy team to secure it as well.”
With just a few days of the season 14 patch being live before their first match it will be interesting to see how G2, and the other teams in the LEC, play their opening matches. While there will be some forced differences from the patch, we could see a lot of things carried over from last season that over time slowly fade out of the meta as teams learn it better.
The action in the LEC kicks off with G2 Esports vs Team BDS later today, January 13, at 4 pm GMT. G2 will then face Karmine Corp at 6 pm GMT tomorrow, before facing Rogue at 5 pm GMT on Monday.
