Wunder reveals how G2 Esports used Reddit to defeat rivals Fnatic in LEC
Riot GamesG2 Esports triumphed over arch-rivals Fnatic for the second time in the LEC 2020 Spring Split season, and according to top laner Martin ‘Wunder’ Hansen, social media giant Reddit was the real hero for the new league leaders.
After a decisive victory over fellow contenders Origen on Friday evening, G2 faced an even tougher challenge — the much-hyped second meeting between themselves and front-runners Fnatic in Spring. Both had lost just three times.
On Saturday, G2 made sure to bump Fnatic’s loss-record up to four. The key wasn’t just stellar play, however, with the eventual losers winning out in that department. Instead, G2 looked to the much-maligned Reddit for the key to victory.
Most of the defending champions’ composition in the high-stakes battle was standard. They scooped up Ezreal, Akali, and Yuumi, before putting Marcin ‘Jankos’ Jankowski on Olaf to ice their juggernaut composition.
The critical pickup, in the end, actually turned out to be Wunder’s oddball top lane draft pick. Despite having never played her before in competitive play, the Dane selected Janna top — a very unusual spot for her — and it paid off.
Riot GamesAfter the 35-minute clash, which Fnatic led in gold advantage for all but two minutes, Wunder spoke to Laure ‘Bulii’ Valée. It was then he revealed just how key Reddit was in G2 Esports’ vital victory, and the strange Janna pick.
“It’s actually funny, I’ve never really played Janna. I played Janna like one or two scrim games yesterday, and I first-timed it in scrims. After those one or two games, I realized that it worked. I originally saw her win rate on Reddit,” he said.
“I saw the thread on Reddit that Janna had a 56% win rate and I was like ‘okay sure, I’ll try it,’ and it made sense into Sett. I’ve never really played it before so I guess it doesn’t really take much skill? Or I’m just a support at heart.”
Wunder added he felt Janna wasn’t a great top pick overall on Patch 10.4, which was left behind by the newer update on March 3, but the Storm’s Fury did work into Sett because of the safety of the lane early.
“It really was just a pick into Sett, it wasn’t really composition-dependent,” he said, and added he “had” to play it considering she had been nerfed in 10.5. “It’s the last time we can play this kind of thing on-stage, so I just had to do it.”
For mobile readers, the related interview begins at 54:44 in the video below.
Considering Wunder’s pinpoint timings with Janna’s Monsoon and a number of extra clutch Howling Gales to catch out Fnatic members contributed to the win, maybe Reddit should be given MVP over Jankos.
If the race for first comes down to the wire, and the head-to-head record comes into play too, G2 should do everything in their power to find the Redditor who complained about Janna — they may have just decided the LEC title race.