G2 vs Fnatic – 2017 EU LCS Summer

Lore & Background

By the summer of 2017, the G2 versus Fnatic rivalry had accumulated enough history to feel almost mythic. It stretched back to the earliest days of the EU LCS, through rosters that had come and gone, through seasons of dominance and rebuilding. What remained constant was the electricity of the series itself: the way the crowd noise shifted, the way commentators leaned forward, the way the chat on every streaming platform turned into a single, roaring organism.

G2 in 2017 carried the weight of a roster that felt almost unfair in its synergy. Perkz was in the pocket of a career where his mechanical ceiling seemed to rise every week, pulling off plays that made opponents look a full patch behind. xPeke brought a ferocity to the bottom lane that turned every wave into a small war, and Hylissang anchored the back line with the kind of veteran composure that let the younger stars take their shots. Against Fnatic, that chemistry was tested in the most honest way possible—repeatedly, in front of thousands of fans who had been following the rivalry for years.

Fnatic, for their part, represented the other pole of EU LoL identity: a club with a deeper institutional memory, a fanbase that felt like a second family, and a tradition of producing players who became household names across the scene. Whatever the individual series scores, the 2017 Summer meetings between these two teams added another chapter to a rivalry that, in the collective memory of the EU community, is inseparable from the league itself.

In Their Own Story

The Copenhagen studio hummed with a low, electric buzz—the kind of sound that means three thousand people are holding their breath. On the stage, five monitors glow blue-white, and the smell of energy drinks and nervous sweat hangs in the recycled air. Perkz cracks his knuckles, eyes already scanning the minimap in the loading screen. Across the channel, in a London studio that feels a world away yet is somehow right there in the same broadcast, the Fnatic players settle in, headphones on, the familiar weight of the rivalry pressing on their shoulders like a physical thing.

Someone in the crowd calls out a name—Perkz, xPeke, Hylissang—and the sound rolls through the arena like a slow wave. The caster's voice drops to a near-whisper. The clock starts. And for the next twenty minutes, nobody in either city blinks.

Reader's Guide

The 2017 EU LCS Summer split was the stage: a regular-season gauntlet of best-of-three series across the European circuit, with every G2-versus-Fnatic card carrying the weight of years of rivalry. Stakes were high not just for ladder position but for narrative—this was the year the EU scene's two biggest brands went head-to-head with rosters that felt like they belonged on a World Championship stage.

The key moments in any of these series lived in the mid and bot lanes. Perkz would isolate his opponent, look for the one-play kill that resets the entire game, and the crowd would erupt before the body even hit the ground. xPeke, meanwhile, turned the bottom lane into a perpetual skirmish zone, poking through waves, daring the enemy ADC to step in. Hylissang read the chaos and punished the overextension with surgical flash-hook plays that felt almost telepathic.

What made these matches iconic wasn't a single play but the rhythm of the whole series—the way G2's coordinated, almost mechanical teamfights contrasted with Fnatic's individual brilliance and adaptability. Fans still reference the 2017 Summer G2-Fnatic series because it captured the rivalry at its most honest: no underdogs, no storylines, just two teams that had built their entire identities around beating each other, doing it in front of the people who had followed them for years.

Did You Know?

• Perkz's 2017 form is frequently cited by EU LoL fans as one of the peak individual performances in the league's history, with his mechanical ceiling in that split still referenced in highlight reels years later.
• The G2–Fnatic rivalry predates the modern EU LCS format and traces back to the earliest seasons of organized European League of Legends competition, making it one of the longest-running head-to-head rivalries in the regi
• xPeke was known for an aggressive, wave-crashing playstyle in the bottom lane that made every G2–Fnatic bot-lane matchup feel like a separate, self-contained battle within the larger game.
• Hylissang brought a veteran's composure to the G2 support role in 2017, often serving as the tactical anchor that allowed Perkz and xPeke to take high-risk plays with confidence.