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The competitive League of Legends off-season is drawing to a close. Gradually, the professional club matches are returning to our screens, including the matches in LEC Winter 2025, the first split of Europe's elite league.

Opening up LEC Winter 2025 will be Rogue and Heretics. Both clubs, to be honest, have little chance of being the top team of the winter at LEC, but it's a new season and who knows, maybe someone will surprise.

Let's see who will prove to be stronger and earn their first win of the new season, and who will have to start their LEC Winter 2024 journey with a loss.

Let's go.

Heretics Form

We open the Heretics vs Rogue match with an analysis of the Heretics uniforms. They will play in this match as favourites with odds to win at around 1.7.

Heretics have been in the LEC structure since 2022. In their "debut" season, Team Heretics played on the TIR-2 stage, more specifically in Superliga Summer 2022 (Top 1), European Masters Summer 2022 (Top 1) and Iberian Cup 2022, where they finished Top 2.

In 2023, the Heretics entered the LEC series of tournaments. The successes were not so good: first TOP-8 at LEC Winter 2023, with SK Gaming knocking them out.

In spring the situation only got worse: Heretics again failed in the group stage, this time playing it with a score of 3-6 and not making it to the play-offs.

In the next round of the LEC draw, Team Heretics performed their best as an affiliate team. They took the top 4 at LEC Summer 2023, Ledge and Fnatic in a battle for the top 3. Heretics secured $5,512 by finishing in the top 4.

• Team Heretics roster: Carlsen, Sheo, Kamiloo, Flakked, Stend.

After a series of bad performances last year, Heretics changed their roster by signing top European players. Let's see how they will do against the strongest representatives of the region.

The group stage of LEC Winter 2024 was not so good. The team was quite brisk in the group stage, but later slipped to 4-5.

Going into the play-offs Heretics faced BDS - the best team of the group stage of LEC Winter 2024. The French club fully justified their status by winning 2-0 and Heretics travelled to the bottom of the group stage.

The LEC Winter 2024 play-offs did not last long. Heretics defeated SK Gaming 1-2 in the first match of the main stage, leaving the championship at the TOP-8 stage.

At the end of the LEC Spring 2024 regular season Heretics finished in the top 4. In the first round of play-offs Heretics faced BDS and rather ignominiously fell to the bottom net after a 0-2 defeat. Already in a match for life in the first round they played against SK Gaming where they won 2-1 and it was pretty tough. Next was a match with Fnatic, which ended 2-3 in favour of the Orange, and Heretics missed a chance to prove themselves at the Mid-Season Invitational 2024.

The Heretics made it to the LEC Summe 2024 Playoffs by a slim margin. They finished in 6th place with a score of 3-6.

The LEC Summer 2024 playoffs began with a very lacklustre loss against SK Gaming. Followed by a similarly lacklustre win against GiantX and a top-7 exit.

Team Heretics' most popular champions

Aatrox (3 matches, 100% wins) and Renekton (2 matches, 100% wins) appear on LOUD's top line.

Sejuani (4 matches, 100% wins) and Wukong (3 matches, 66% wins) take the jungle.

On the centre line, Taliyah (3 matches, 100% wins) and Lissandra (3 matches, 66% wins) are not the most popular.

Among the shooters Aphelios (4 games, 75% wins) and also Xayah (3 games, 66% wins).

Nautilus (4 games, 75% wins), Nami (4 games, 75% wins).

Rogue's form

Let's move on to analysing Rogue's match form. In this match they will play as an outsider with odds to win around 2.6. It's worth noting that Rogue are a random team at LEC Winter 2025, as throughout the off-season the club frantically tried to sell their slot in the European league, but no buyer was found. Expecting something outstanding from Rogue in this split is a no-brainer.

Rogue missed all of 2023 and only returned to the competitive League of Legends in the run-up to 2024. This is 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 did not show anything: Top 10

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 Heretics

Previously, the teams played each other three times during the 2024 season. Heretics won twice and Rogue won 1 match.

Predicted result of Heretics vs Rogue at LEC Winter 2025

In this match my bet is on the Heretics. Despite the fact that Rogue have managed to put together a very competitive roster in terms of names, I am sure that they will not show anything at the upcoming tournament and will eventually sell their LEC slot.

Bottom line: Heretics win.