Six matches, four teams, three days to close out the Spring Split regular season at the Madrid Arena — and four very different reads heading into the LEC Spring Playoffs. The weekend was rattled by Twitter (X) conflicts and delivered a rollercoaster of emotions and matches across the three days.

G2 Esports 

Dominant start, shakier finish. Friday's 2-0 over KC is the weekend's best upper-bracket performance: tempo controlled from minute one, almost no openings given, a clear statement. Saturday's 2-0 over GIANTX confirmed top 4 at 6-2 and looked like a closed file. Sunday's loss to MKOI cracked the veneer. The seeding doesn't move, the upper bracket is secured — but MKOI showed, in the last match of the split, that there are spaces to find in this G2 when the pressure goes up. The playoff concern isn't the level. It's holding it across five matches without dropping a beat.

Karmine Corp

On the plus side, one image: Caliste's pentakill on Ashe in game 1 against MKOI, in front of 12,000 seats backing the other side, in the most hyped match of the split — Ibai and Kameto headlining a morning showmatch, a packed Madrid Arena, an explosive context. Coming out 2-1 from a series like that, against the home team, is the kind of reference you carry into playoffs. The flip side is heavier. Friday's 0-2 loss to G2 raised the first questions about how well KC's model holds in matches with strong opponents. Sunday's 1-2 loss to GIANTX raised more uncomfortable ones: experimental drafts — Brand top in the decider, atypical picks throughout — and a mindset that looked more like exploration than the close of a regular season. The 7-2 final record papers over the asymmetry. One great series, two you'd rather not see again.

Caliste Kyeahoo
Photo Credit: Hara Amoros/Riot Games

GIANTX

Two 0-2 losses against MKOI then G2 confirmed the familiar ceiling against the top of the table, and GIANTX looked set to close out the Roadtrip without much to show. Sunday rewrote the conclusion. 2-1 against KC, game 3 dragged across the line. It's the upset of the weekend, and more importantly a rare reference point for a side regularly told they don't have the stature of the top 3: beating the regular season's second-best team, even a wounded version, right before playing their split in the lower bracket.

Movistar KOI

Losing the clasico to KC at home is an expensive symbolic hit — and the silence in the Madrid Arena right after Caliste's pentakill is an image that will stick. But the team closes the weekend by beating G2 2-1 in the very last match of the split, locks upper bracket at the buzzer, and does it at a level closer to playoffs than to regular season. MKOI leaves Madrid with momentum, confidence, and the sense that a ceiling they'd often been told they couldn't break is maybe already cracked... Maybe it all comes down to playing their way, with Alvaro on melee supports after all.

Mkoi team
Photo Credit: Hara Amoros/Riot Games

Playoffs on the line

The bracket is here ! And Vitality used their first-seed pick on MKOI for May 23 — but the predictions have tightened sharply since MKOI's Sunday win over G2. The other upper semi puts Karmine Corp against G2 on May 24, a straight remake of the LEC Versus final before the bracket has even warmed up. Everything from here is BO5, grand final June 7.

In the meantime, the EWC EMEA Qualifier will draw to a close this week, with MKOI taking their revenge against KC on May 14 at 5PM CEST.