LEC: Excel Reportedly Looking to Replace Starring Jungler
The new LEC season has been rough for Excel. With only the Summer Split left before the first-ever LEC Season Finals, Excel is looking to make some radical changes in hopes of pulling through before it is too late.
This year has been rough for all the Excel fans out there. In early 2023, many fans believed the new Excel to be one of the top-performing teams in EMEA and that they would continue their promising results from the previous year.
However, this was not the case, and even though many teams seem to have found their place in the new EMEA environment, Excel is still looking to find its footing. Now, the team looks to swap out one of the main players on the roster to see if that can help them improve before the LEC Summer Split 2023.
Excel's Struggles in Winter
Going into the first-ever Winter Split in the LEC, Excel went through an almost complete redo of their playing roster, only keeping their bot laner Patrik "Patrik" Jírů from the previous year. The new roster included Odoamne, Xerxe, Vetheo, Patrik, and Targamas.
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This was a radical change for the team, but considering the previous experience of all the players, many believed this could be the new superteam in the LEC. However, to the disappointment of all the fans, Excel did not perform even close to what was expected, and after the LEC Winter Split 2023, Excel only managed to win one of their nine games, eliminating them from Group contention.
This was a massive blow for both the players and fans, and after Winter, the CEO of Excel came out with an official apology talking about their bad results. Additionally, their mid laner Vetheo was talking about losing confidence after all their consecutive losses.
But after a split of failures, it can't get much worse, right?
Excel's Spring Split Dreams Shatter
After leaving the Winter Split with only one win under their belts, not much more can go wrong. Ahead of spring, Excel decided to replace their support Targamas for Limit and also said goodbye to a major part of their coaching staff.
The spring split begins, and XL wins their first game against Fnatic. This is, of course, a massive boost in confidence for the roster, but unfortunately, it is not enough. After the first stage of the LEC Spring Split is over, Excel finishes last place, again, with a 2-7 score.
On the last weekend of the LEC Spring, Excel also decided to bench Vetheo and bring forward former mid laner for 100 Thieves, Felix "Abbedagge" Braun, giving Vetheo some space to focus on his mental health.
Even with one more victory compared to the last split, a 2-7 score is nothing to brag about. Especially with their roster being stacked with experienced players. So what changes is Excel looking to make this time?
Sources: Excel Removed Xerxe as Starring Jungler Ahead of Summer
Even though the LEC Spring Split is still going strong, Excel is out of the competition and can already turn its focus to Summer.
According to Alejandro "anonimotum" Gomis from blix.gg, Excel Esports is looking for a new jungler to replace Andrei "Xerxe" Dragomir. Xerxe joined Excel at the beginning of 2023 and has been struggling to find his footing compared to the other junglers in the tournament.
Reportedly, nothing is finalized at the current point in time, but among their options are several of the jungles in the current LoL European Masters. Whether replacing Xerxe is the right step for the organization or not, we will see when the time comes.