I'm still giddy while writing this post knowing XL is one Bo5 win away from making it to Season Finals even after ending 10th in Winter and Spring.

A sweep of the Spring champs MAD Lions followed up by a slobber-knocker of a 3-game series against SK Gaming leading up to a Best of 5 series with the Winter champs themselves, G2 eSports.

Some die hard XL fan would say:

"MAD beat G2 during the regular season, and we just 2-0'd MAD Lions, so by transitive property we should be able to topple G2"

Personally, I partially agree with that logic but I do respect G2 and how they ended the regular season as the 1st seed.

Let's look at the matchups:

• (TOP) Odoamne vs BrokenBlade - I'd say BB has a slight edge here over Odo but anything can happen in a Best of 5, and a variable here would be how their junglers would play around them.
• (JUNGLE) Peach vs Yike - this one might be a tie, since both junglers have performed tremendously in EMEA Masters.
• (MID) Abbedagge vs Caps - would we get Fakerdagge vs Craps or Abbedogge vs Claps?
• (BOT) Patrik vs Hans Sama - Patrik is facing off here against his best competition so far in Hans Sama. Both can 1v9 games if given enough resources. I have to put my partial bias pick here and say Patrik over Hans.
• (SUPPORT) LIMIT vs Mikyx - Miky facing off against his former team. Vengeance arc right here and I would say Miky over LIMIT.

Both teams have stomped games, both have thrown away leads, and both have been able to come back from deficits numerous times.

This will be a drawn out series and I am predicting spoiling a 3-2 win for XL, sending them to the 2023 Season Finals.