The BDS Bot laner was on fire last week
Our LEC MVP for Spring Week 1: BDS Crownie
Despite narrowly losing their opening game to SK Gamin, Team BDS showed they are not to be underestimated this week - and that goes double for our MVP of the week, Juš "Crownie" Marušič.
After a week´s break, the LEC is back with another flurry of games to kick off the 2023 Spring Season. After the first week, we have two undefeated teams - SK Gaming and Team Vitality - and three more in Astralis, G2 Esports and Team BDS that also showed they can be dangerous and should not be slept on. We saw a lot of plazers step up, but for us, the one who impressed us the most is Team BDS´ AD Carry Juš "Crownie" Marušič.
Now, hold off the pitchforks - yes, we just saw Steven "Hans Sama" Liv get a Pentakill on his signature Draven in his first game of the split. However, he was given Draven in G2´s two victories, which also came against teams we have rather mediocre expectations for this season - Team Heretics and Excel Esports - and the team suffered against an Astralis we expected to also be relatively humble. For us, Crownie´s achievements on three different champions and with a less stellar roster are more impressive.
Formerly known as Crownshot, the Slovenian AD Carry rose up through the European Challenger Scene, several times reaching the qualifiers for the EU LCS, as the LEC was then known. He first gathered wide attention with several deep EU Masters runs in 2018 with the MAD Lions roster, before being recruited for SK Gaming in the winter of 2019. He spent several years going between lower-tier LEC teams and the LFL and most regarded him as a capable AD carry, but not likely to be Europe´s next big star. Last week, however, he might have changed some minds about that.
Team BDS´ first game of the week was actually a loss to SK Gaming, where despite a very good start in the bot lane Crownie´s Aphelios struggled later on because of great flanks by SK´s Gnar and Akali that left him exposed. The Slovenian came back with a vengeance against MAD Lions, dominating the winter finalist with a top-tier Zeri that went unkilled throughout the game. He ended the weekend with another standout game, this time on Xayah. He achieved a total KDA of 6, going double digits in both of his wins.
| Game | Kills | Deaths | Assists |
| Game 1: Aphelios | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| Game 2: Zeri | 11 | 0 | 5 |
| Game 3: Xayah | 7 | 1 | 6 |
Read More about the LEC MVPs:
- Our LEC Playoffs MVP: MAD Elyoya
- Our LEC MVP for Groups Week 2: G2 Hans Sama
- Our LEC MVP for Groups Week 1: KOI Malrang
Next week, Crownie and his Team BDS will face off against Fnatic as the LEC resumes on Saturday, March 18th. Will this be another key win for the Sloveniean or would the veteran Martin “Rekkles” Larsson come up clutch for his struggling team?