Astralis vs MAD Lions: The Lions seem reinvigorated, but can they surprise the team that is full of surprises?

The 2023 LEC Spring Groups are coming to an end, as today two teams will join Team Vitality and Team BDS in the Top 4. The first match of today pits MAD Lions and Astralis against each other, while the last match of the Group Stage is a rematch between G2 Esports and KOI – but who will prevail before the last hurdle of the 2023 LEC Spring Group Stage?

Astralis vs MAD Lions Preview

Astralis

The Danish team has surprised everyone this Split, as they have gone from one of the weakest teams last year, to a middle of the pack squad in Winter, but now, they got into Groups from the second place of Regular Season. What’s more impressive is that they only made one change, swapping Oliver “Dajor” Ryppa for Adam “LIDER” Ilyasov. The Norwegian midlaner has some signature picks like Zed and Irelia which are a bit uncommon for the EMEA scene, however Astralis managed to make wonders out of the Champions – most of the times.

Astralis had a great performance in the Bo1 stage of the competition, and they beat Fnatic in the first round of Bo3’s 2-1, getting to the Upper Bracket Qualification match. But fans of the team couldn’t be as happy as they were after the match against Martin “Rekkles” Larsson and his team, as Vitality beat Astralis 2-0 in an extremely dominant fashion, leaving no room for counterplay with picks such as Annie and Wukong.

MAD Lions

The Lions have finally awoken! Yasin “Nisqy” Dincer and co. have managed to beat Fnatic and stay in the Group Stage after having a horrible showing this Spring. They finished 8^th after tiebreakers (even though they made it to the finals in the Winter Split), so they were complete underdogs in Groups. They kept their not-so-great form against Team Vitality, where they couldn’t really impact the games, and they lost 0-2 against Luka “Perkz” Perkovic and his squad.

However, everything changed in the match against Fnatic, as the Lions have finally looked like themselves again. In the first match, they put together a wombo-combo of Kennen, Zeri and Rell, and with Oscár “Oscarinin” Munoz Jiménez picking Jarvan and not ulting that good in some instances MAD got the lead. However, Fnatic didn’t falter, and swept the Lions with Rekkles at the front in the second round. The third match was one of the most interesting in the whole Spring Split, as Fnatic almost finished the game, MAD almost reverse swept them, but in the end, Matyás “Carzzy” Orság and his team had to take the Infernal Soul in order to win. Nevertheless, MAD Lions triumphed, so they can keep on fighting for Top 4.

Astralis vs MAD Lions Predictions

While Astralis are certainly the stronger team of the two if we look at their records, they still failed to beat MAD Lions in the Regular Season. The underdogs have managed to beat Kasper “Kobbe” Kobberup in the 2v2 so hard that he couldn’t stand up, while not letting either LIDER or Finn “Finn” Wiestal get out of control. If MAD can play their slower approach with great midgame teamfighting, they should be able to clutch this win, but if Astralis can get a strong early, they should be able to proceed to Playoffs.