Chances are, if you ask any fan of League of Legends esports who the best Western team has been over the last few years, nine out of 10 folks would say G2 Esports. And in a recent graphic shown on the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational broadcast, the numbers signaling just how much better G2 have performed in comparison to the rest of their Western counterparts is staggering.
The graphic, titled “Fighting the Raid Boss,” showed off just how effective G2 have been in comparison to the rest of the West when facing off against Korean and Chinese League teams over the last two seasons. G2’s win rate against the East is just over 29 percent over the last two seasons, while everyone else from the West is putting up a combined win rate of eight percent (yes, it’s that low).
G2’s record against the East is far better than any other Western League team dating back to MSI 2023. In that time frame, the EMEA titans have played 24 games against Korean and Chinese teams, and although they’ve won only seven of them, that’s more than every other team from the LCS and LEC combined.
Since MSI 2023, G2’s seven wins against China and Korea outrank everyone else from the LEC and LCS (Fnatic, Team BDS, MAD Lions, Cloud9, Team Liquid, NRG, and FlyQuest) as they have won just six games between all of them.
Following Team Liquid’s 3-0 loss to Top Esports last week, North American teams in particular reached an all-time low mark in the East-West gap discussion. LCS teams have now lost 41 of their last 43 games against Korea and China. It’s not looking any better for Liquid, either, as they’ll face off against defending world champs T1 later this week.
League fans on the game’s official subreddit took it upon themselves to break down each Western team’s individual performance against the East during the current decade, with one Reddit user named dracdliwasiAN going team by team to support the claim that G2 stand on top of the field.
One could even go back to Worlds 2020—one year after G2’s run to the Worlds grand final—and find that G2 swept Gen.G in the quarterfinal that year, in addition to taking a game off eventual world champions DAMWON Gaming in the semifinals. That tournament was a sign of things to come for the next few years as other Western teams have been hard-pressed to replicate the modicum of success that G2 have found against the East.
One fan in the Reddit comments named Admirable-Word-8964 came to the defense of Fnatic, who have been particularly decent against the East, provided you’re willing to extrapolate the sample size. Sticking with the theme of Worlds 2020, Fnatic hold a record of 8-20 against the LCK and LPL since that point in time, which is good enough for a win rate of 29 percent—the same number that G2 hold against the East since 2023.
With MSI 2024 ongoing, G2 currently stand tall as just one of two Western “hopes” remaining in the tournament, the other being Liquid. G2 nearly advanced in the first round of the bracket stage by beating perennial powerhouses T1 but were thwarted in an on-brand, razor-thin five-game series on May 10. They’ll face off against Top Esports in the lower bracket tomorrow, May 14.
