Week four of the LEC Summer Split was defined by contrasting storylines. Karmine Corp stayed flawless and edged toward a perfect regular season, Fnatic hauled themselves off the floor with the weekend's loudest statement, and the Shifters sank further into a season that is slipping away — all while the fight for the final playoff places tightened behind the leaders.
Fnatic came into the week with one question hanging over them — after two rough opening weeks, could they still find their level? They answered it twice. A 2-0 over SK Gaming on Friday was the first sign; a 2-0 over G2 the night after was the statement, a comfortable win over the split's number-two side.
What changed is the shape of their game. Fnatic are far more aggressive in the early game now, and both solo lanes are winning their matchups — the kind of pressure that hands Razork the freedom to play his high-impact style in the jungle, snowballing leads across the map rather than reacting to the opponent. Vladi is at the heart of it. Out of a long slump, the mid laner looks himself again, and Fnatic's whole level has climbed alongside his.
At the other end, the Shifters are in freefall. Five matches in and still without a win, they look like a side with no shared plan, disconnected in a way the roster changes have not fixed. The players meant to drive them — Sheo and Nuc among them — are being outperformed rather than setting any tempo, and the Korean players look isolated from the rest of the group. Bottom of the table at 0-5, the maths is nearly done. The harder question is whether a roster that increasingly looks broken has anything left to build on.
Karmine Corp keep winning, and keep looking sharper as they do. A 2-0 over GIANTX made it 7-0, and the through-line since the EWC is a simple one: they have snowballed the split to perfection and have never looked stronger. Two games remain, against SK Gaming and the Shifters — both bottom-half sides — which puts a perfect regular season genuinely within reach. The last team to run an LEC split unbeaten was Fnatic, back in 2015.
Busio, for one, refuses to get carried away. Speaking to RFT.GG after the GIANTX win, KC's support pointed out that the schedule has flattered them, and that these games are "easier than they'd be against a better team." Staying hungry, rather than the winning itself, is the challenge from here.
The projections make the top of the table academic and the bottom a genuine scrap. Karmine Corp and G2 are locked in at 100% to qualify, and Vitality are all but through at 94.1%. For KC, though, qualification was never really the question — the seeding is. The regular-season number one earns the right to pick its first playoff opponent, and winning that opening series is a direct ticket to Worlds. That makes the top seed the real prize of the split, and KC are in pole position for it.
Below them, four teams are crammed into an eight-point band for the last three playoff spots: Natus Vincere (68.3%), Fnatic (68.0%), GIANTX (64.8%) and Movistar KOI (60.2%) are separated by almost nothing, with a single series enough to reshuffle the order. SK Gaming (29.2%) are clinging on, while Team Heretics (11.7%) and Shifters (3.6%) are nearly gone. In a top-six race this tight, week five's meetings between the chasing pack matter more than anything the leaders do.
The slump is over. Fnatic's mid laner was the single biggest reason the week broke their way, and the numbers back the eye test: 11/4/12 across the G2 series, 72% kill participation and a +761 gold lead at 15 minutes. He set the tempo in both games and opened the midgame at will, punishing every misstep from the man across the lane. The Vladi who lifted an LEC title with Karmine Corp in early 2025 seems to be back — and after a rough start to the split, that is a real lift for a Fnatic side scrapping for a playoff place.
GIANTX arrived in the podium conversation on the back of their Isma-Jackies mid-jungle axis, and left it. They lost both games that mattered — beaten by Vitality in the fight for third, then swept 2-0 by Karmine Corp — and slid to 2-3 and seventh, undone by an early game that kept putting them behind. Oscarinin did not dress it up, telling RFT.GG that:
We're just not playing the game the way we normally do — our early games are bad right now.
The talent is clearly there — the excellent showing against Movistar KOI proved it — so at 64.8% to qualify, this looks more like an accident than their true level.
