Welcome to EGamersWorld.
We continue our look at what's happening at LEC Winter 2025, where the battle for a slot at First Stand 2025 - the new international tournament in the global LoL competitive ecosystem - is heating up. While the group stage of the Winter Split heats up in the European region.
Let's talk about the second day of the first week of confrontations. And about one of the most passable matches of the week - the duel between Rogue and GiantX.
We're trying to figure out which of the Rogue - GiantX pair will be stronger and earn extra points ahead of a more heated battle for slots in the play-offs.
Let's go.
GiantX uniforms
Let's open up the GiantX vs Rogue match with an analysis of GiantX's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win at around 1.7.
The LEC 2024 Winter Split was the debut match for the club, which absorbed the EXCEL slot. Incidentally, GIANTX themselves are the fruit of a merger between British club EXCEL and Spanish Giants. For the 2025 season, the team procrastinated until the last minute to announce a full squad.
After two crushingly bad splits in the 2023 season, GIANTX changed their forester and replaced Targamas with South Korean legionnaire Peach. The change was a good thing, because there is no other way to explain the miracle-run at LEC Summer 2023.
GIANTX not only finished in the top 3, but also made it to the split grand finals, thus guaranteeing themselves a spot in the LEC Finals. Ledge and Vitality are in the finals, but there is no shame in that, you have to understand.
The achievements of LEC Summer 2023 are at risk of being overturned given the experience of the first match of LEC Finals 2023. In the match against MAD Lions, GIANTX looked more like what we saw during LEC Winter and Spring, but not at the summer split.
In the next match, then EXCEL faced Fnatic. That match was more like something worthwhile and ended in a full-fledged bo5, but in Fnatic's favour. For ex-Excel, LEC Finals 2024 ended with a top-5 finish.
In their first match under the new tag, GIANTX will meet Vitality. I think the Ledge Bees will bee. Next up is The International and the game against BDS. If the French can beat the former, it's hard to believe that they will succeed against BDS.
GiantX barely made it to the play-offs of LEC Winter 2024. They managed to do it only during the last match of the regular season against Rogue. They fell to Vitality in the first round of the main stage, which resulted in a quick 0-2 loss. GIANTX had the same outcome in the lower bracket match, where they fell to MAD Lions, who eventually reached the grand finals.
GiantX finished in 6th place at the LEC Spring 2024 regular season. In the first round of the LEC Spring 2024 Playoffs they played against Fnatic. There everything ended on two maps. And then there was a fight with Mad Lions in the lower grid and lost with the score 1-2.
At LEC Summer 2024 Playoffs GiantX made it to the LEC Summer 2024 Playoffs from the 7th place with the score 3-6. In the first game of the LEC Summer 2024 Playoffs GiantX played against Fnatic, taking the card. The good play from GiantX continued into the next round of playoffs, where the club played against Team Heretics and won 2-1. However, the performance at the LEC Summer 2024 Playoffs ended at the match against BDS, where GiantX Ledgeili won 1-2, thus finishing in the LEC Summer 2024 top 6. Next up was LEC Finals 2024, where they finished in the Top 6.
They will play their first match at LEC Winter 2025 against SK.
Most popular GIANTX champions
On the top line the most frequent picks are KSante (4 matches, 50% wins), Gnar (3 matches, 100% wins).
Foresters picks are Wukong (4 matches, 50% wins), Vi (2 matches, 50% wins), Nocturne (2 matches, 50% wins), Viego (2 matches, 0% wins).
On the centre line Gragas (4 matches, 50% wins), Annie (4 matches, 50% wins).
Aphelios (6 matches, 33% wins), Jinx (3 matches, 66% wins), Zeri (2 matches, 100% wins).
The other stable players are Lulu (3 matches, 66% wins), Rakan (3 games, 0% wins), Nautilus (2 matches, 50% wins).
Rogue Form
We continue our breakdown of the Rogue vs GiantX match with an analysis of Rogue's match form. In this match they are playing as an outsider, which is not surprising. The odds for a win are around 2.1.
Rogue missed all of 2023 and only returned to the competitive League of Legends in the run-up to 2024. This was a logical decision, as Rogue had a strong showing in 2022, but something went wrong.
First, they proved themselves at LEC Spring 2022, reaching the grand finals of the Spring Split. Then G2 stepped in and prevented Rogue from ending the season with a triumph.
However, fortune proved favourable in the next European league. At LEC Summer 2022, Rogue finished top 3 in the group stage, and then played a pretty tough play-offs: a 3-2 win over MAD Lions, a 0-3 loss to G2, a small final win over Fnatic, and finally an undisputed championship with a 3-0 win over G2.
Rogue visited Worlds 2022 in October the season before last. They had low expectations, but Rogue exceeded many people's expectations by making it to the play-offs. At the end of the tournament, the team finished in the top 8, which is an absolute success for the residents of Europe.
- Rogue line-up: Adam, Malrang, Larssen, Patrix, Execute.
In the new season the core of Koi plays for Rogue, which is quite logical, because the club absorbed the slot of the Spanish organisation.
In the first match, Rogue will meet SK Gaming. I expect a win in the first match for the "new" team within the LEC. Next - the game against Heretics and here it will not be easier than in the match with SK: "Heretics" look good, and their roster is probably one of the most combative in the new LEC. In the end Rogue Ledge and Heretics beat G2 Esports, who are considered to be the main favourites for the tournament, but then lost to SK Gaming.
The first week Rogue went 1-2, which is not good, but not critical. But things got much worse, which led Rogue to a 2-6 statistic before Long Sogpeg's final match. And they lost that one, thus finishing in the top 9.
LEC Spring 2024 Rogue failed. Just like at LEC Winter 2024, the team did not make it out of the group stage, finishing in the top 9. It was not much better at LEC Summer 2024, where Rogue showed nothing: Top 10.
LEC Winter 2025 will open with a match against Heretics.
Rogue's most popular champions
Ornn (4 matches, 25% wins), Gangplank (4 matches, 100% wins), Gnar (4 games, 50% wins), Gwen (4 matches, 50% wins) were all equally weaponised on top.
Wukong (4 matches, 75% wins), Vi (3 games, 33% wins), Trundle (3 matches, 33% wins) played in the forest.
Azir (6 matches, 66% wins), Taliyah (4 games, 25% wins) played on the centre.
ADC position was closed with Kalista (5 matches, 40% of wins), Ezrael (3 matches, 66% of wins), Sivir (3 matches, 66% of wins).
Renata Glasc (3 games, 33% wins), Rakan (3 matches, 100% wins), Nami (2 matches, 100% wins) were selected for the tournament.
History of head-to-head meetings between Rogue and GiantX
The teams have previously played each other three times over the course of the 2024 season. GiantX won each of those meetings.
Predicted result of GiantX vs Rogue at LEC Winter 2025
As I mentioned earlier, Rogue is a random guest in the 2025 season. It's unlikely to expect high performance from them, because even before the Long Sogpeg tournament they wanted to get rid of their slot, but they didn't find a buyer.
Bottom line: GiantX wins.
Make a bet
