Astralis have secured their first victory of the 2023 LEC Winter Split today after six failed attempts. A struggling Excel Esports team who entered the day anxiously seeking a chance to turn things around was trounced by Astralis. But in just over 31 minutes, Astralis ended Excel’s hopes of salvaging their Winter Split.

Astralis appeared in unusual form during the competition today. Astralis destroyed Excel despite entering the game without a victory, appearing to be an entirely different and far more powerful squad. Astralis had a kill advantage of 22 to 6 and an edge in towers of 8 to 1 when they destroyed Excel’s Nexus.

The final scores from today’s game show that Astralis won completely and decisively. After taking the first blood at the three-minute mark, they never fell behind Excel in the gold.

Due to this outcome, Astralis and Excel Esports are currently tied for last position in the LEC with records of 1-5 each. The two teams would be mathematically out of the playoff picture and out of contention for the split’s next stage if the split ended today heading into the final weekend of the regular season before the newly created “group stage.”

Under the new LEC formatting rules, only the top eight teams in the league advance to the group stage of a split, and things are not looking good for Astralis and Excel as they currently hold the ninth and tenth positions in the rankings.

Astralis will have a simpler schedule than Excel for the upcoming week because they won’t play any of the three teams that are presently tied for first place in the LEC and because two of their games will be against under.500 teams. When Excel returns to the LEC stage on Saturday, Feb. 4, they will be attempting to end their current three-game losing streak against Team Heretics. For the single round-robin split to end with the top eight teams in the league, Excel and Astralis will probably both need immaculate 3-0 weeks.