After Karmine Corp dominated the LEC Spring 2025 regular season, the team will face off against KOI in the first match of the playoffs. While elimination isn’t yet on the line, the winning team will get a huge advantage in the tournament as it sticks to the upper bracket.
The LEC’s regular season concluded with Karmine Corp at the top. While the team lost once against Fnatic, it went undefeated otherwise, which was more than impressive. After all, the tournament is filled with some of the strongest European League of Legends teams fighting it out to win the grand prize and guarantee a spot at the Mid-Season Invitational.
Karmine Corp’s first opponent in the playoffs is KOI, who placed third in the regular season standings. Ironically, KC’s first match in the regular season was also against KOI, which KC won with a series score of 2-1. The looming question is whether the results will be any different this time.
Karmine Corp is considered one of the strongest teams in the European region, and the ongoing LEC split hasn’t given fans any reason to doubt this. The team reached the First Stand grand final and only lost to Fnatic in the regular season, going undefeated otherwise and securing the top spot with an 8-1 final standing. Much of the team’s success is thanks to the performance of the team’s jungler, Yike., whose high objective acquisition rate and great synergy with both Vladi and Caliste have brought the team this far and will influence the match against KOI.
KOI doesn’t have many recent achievements to its name. The team has failed to crack the top three in any LEC split, though it defeated Fnatic in the regular season. The squad’s players, including Myrwyn, Elyoya, and Supa, have showcased high carry potential but aren’t consistent enough to be reliable. Regardless, KOI is an extremely strong team in its own right, and key factors like teamwork and communication are priorities for its players.
Below are the rosters and roles for both teams.
Karmine Corp:
KOI:
Karmine Corp has a fairly limited champion pool it typically goes for, especially when facing strong teams. Since KOI is one of the favorites to win the tournament, fans can expect KC to go for favored champions like Gnar, Ambessa, Vi, Taliyah, Miss Fortune, and Alistar. Secondary picks include Rumble, Kai’Sa, and Braum.
KOI is slightly more flexible with its champion picks. Rell, Braum, Corki, Ezreal, Azir, Yone, Vi, K’Sante, and Ambessa all have high pick rates for the team, suggesting it has more than enough champions to fall back on with the fearless draft system being in place.
Karmine Corp may have lost once in the LEC’s regular season against Fnatic, but it comfortably won against every other team to otherwise go undefeated, as its last five matches prove.
KOI started the LEC split with some shaky matches, but the team came back and ended the regular season with a winning streak.
Karmine Corp and KOI have faced off twice, and KC has come out on top both times. KOI has only ever won one game against Karmine Corp, and it was in the current LEC split’s regular season.
Karmine Corp is the favorite to win against KOI by a significant margin, with a betting line of 1.28. KOI’s line of 3.60 cements it as the underdog.
Although Karmine Corp and KOI were both in the regular season’s top three standings, KC’s performance was more impressive than KOI’s. KC’s poke-heavy strategy may force KOI to miss out on valuable farm, giving the First Stand finalists an early lead in the laning phase. KOI’s jungler Elyoya may attempt to gank the lanes, but that would just give KC’s Yike the time to acquire more objectives and increase the lead for KC, especially considering the ganks are likely to fail thanks to KC’s experience and its members’ general map awareness.
Yike has showcased much better objective acquisition than KOI’s Elyoya, and his teammates have a better chance of taking the first tower than KOI’s. It wouldn’t be surprising if KC takes things slow to farm and build a gold advantage while acquiring objectives for the mid and late game advantage, something the team should be able to convert into a win.
Do you think you know which team will come out on top? Then place your bet now!
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