LEC 2024 Winter Split Week 3 Preview – can KC pick up a win?

The newest entry Karmine Corp has yet to win a series in the LEC Winter Split: can they find their first victory in Week 3? Let’s break it down in our weekly preview.

LEC Winter Split Week 3 Preview – What is going wrong with Karmine Corp?

Karmine Corp came in week 3 with little hope of qualifying for the playoffs stage. They had to win all three matches but their loss against Rogue yesterday meant that they are the first team to be eliminated from playoff contention. And even if they were to win the last two matches, they would still end up last in the standings.

But aside from the disappointing results, KC looks quite lost in the game, and the issues are not easily fixable. From top to bottom, each player seems to have something not going right with them, which further amplifies the team’s underperformance.

Cabochard and Saken haven’t looked great so far and aside from a few single matches, they haven’t really performed up to the LEC level they were expected. Targamas has been lackluster as well and he was called out for his lack of vocal and communication in-game. Bo and Upset are the ones with the best individual performances but the Chinese jungler often finds himself disjointed with the rest while Upset struggles to lead the team during the teamfights.

By listening to the comms, it looks like the ADC is often micro-managing which doesn’t really help with the communication since it can lead to messy vocals. Once they get to the mid-game, there isn’t a clear idea and game plan on how they want to play the game: it feels like they just play reactively which is not great when you’re in the LEC.

On one hand, it looks a bit like Team Vitality last year, when the team didn’t seem to know what they should be doing in the late stages of the game. This will be the most important bit to fix heading into Spring, hoping that KC can at least bridge the gap with the other teams.

Two tough opponents – BDS & SK

Going into the last two matches of the split, it looks like KC might end the split with a 0-9 score. Not only will they go up against SK Gaming, but they will also face the first-place team BDS. These two teams have looked great and more cohesive compared to KCorp. Even if Kameto’s team were to get an early lead, they would probably still struggle to get to victory.

Since the match score doesn’t matter anymore, the focus should be on seeing KCorp being more proactive and cleaner with the in-game shotcalling and setups. If they can do that, it would be a decent way to close off the split. After that, everyone will go back to the drawing board and see what things must be done to fix this team. Despite the tough start, I’m still positive KCorp can turn things around: remember Fnatic and Team Heretics last season? Something similar might happen.