zechs
The break is over. LEC is back on our screens and, while maybe not better than ever, full of games you don’t want to miss.
Summer 2022Germany, Berlin, LEC Studio
Rogue
G2 Esports
FnaticFriday kicks off with tied for first place Excel taking on an Astralis team who will have been very keen for a break. After three wins on the bounce against lower table teams, the Danish organisation went up against three of the top teams in the LEC. Unfortunately for them, their first game is against another of those teams so unless they can buck that trend, it looks like a bleak weekend for Astralis.
Friday – Vitality vs Rogue
The game of the day has to be Vitality vs Rogue, though. Rogue are another part of that three way tie for first place. The scary thing about them is that their two losses seem a long way in the past by now. After a 1-2 super week at the start of the season, the regular season specialists have gone undefeated, taking down some big names in the process.
Meanwhile, Vitality continues to be every commentator’s and every analyst’s worst nightmare. Is this finally the week they come good? So far, they’ve managed to beat every team lower than them in the league but lose to every team higher. Are they just Astralis with bigger names? If you’ve scrolled down already, you’ll notice that I have Vitality as game of the day for Saturday, too, which means this is a good weekend to make a statement about Vitality’s direction. Do they go 1-1 and continue to drift shakily towards the bottom play-offs spots? Do they go 2-0 and finally make good on some of that promise the roster showed when it was first unveiled? Maybe they go 0-2 and suddenly even sixth place starts to look uncertain.
On form, this game looks like a Rogue win. Five games undefeated is not a run that happens by accident and, unlike Vitality, Rogue has beaten other good teams. In many ways, Rogue is the opposite of Vitality. Yes, they’re consistently good in best-of-one matches, but they have always struck me as a team that is bigger than the sum of its parts. The players are all good, don’t misunderstand me, but I never look at a Rogue fixture and think “oh, this will be exciting.”
Vitality, on the other hand, is anything but consistent. If anything, this team somehow deigns to be less than the sum of its parts. When I see a Vitality game coming up, I do get excited, because there’s every chance it will end with explosions. Just like a train wreck. The thing that makes me worry for Vitality is that, for a team with such strong individuals, none of those individuals show up on GOL’s LEC stats page as I write this. The only exception is Perkz being tied for second best farm, but that’s not particularly exciting, is it? Certainly not the type of stat that makes you go “wow, I can’t wait to watch Perkz.”
This one seems like a no-brainer, then. One of the most consistent teams in LEC’s recent history going up against an absolute basket case of a team. Rogue wins.
[match_prediction match=”team-vitality-vs-rogue-15-07-2022-09-00″ team=”rogue-lol”]
Saturday – Vitality vs Fnatic
Things don’t get much easier for Vitality going into Saturday. While not having the same win streak as Rogue, Fnatic does have the same number of wins overall and with the same “only losing to good teams” match history.
I mentioned in the previous section that this would be a good time for Vitality to make a statement of intent. The problem is this, though: the reason it’s a good weekend for that is because they have two very difficult games ahead of them. Beating Fnatic would send a message to the rest of the league, but I just can’t quite see it happening.
Look, just throwing a couple of big names together and hoping it works has rarely – if ever – panned out at this level. You need to have a plan, an identity, and for the past split and a bit Vitality hasn’t seemed to have one. They have had strong enough individuals to get past the weaker teams in the league, but that only goes so far. It seems to me that their lack of cohesion and direction gets exposed against teams that have both.
That being said, I do give Vitality a better chance against Fnatic than against Rogue. I think Fnatic is a team that can be dragged into the mud with Vitality. They have a mistake or two in them. I still think Fnatic is the favourite for this tie, but if Vitality can pull Fnatic into an undisciplined brawl they do have the individual talent to cause an upset (no pun intended). Even so, when one of those talents is a top laner who still doesn’t seem to be capable of taking his lane lead to the rest of the map, even that plan – and I use the word very loosely – doesn’t seem very reliable.
I think this will be a harsh welcome back for Vitality. Yes, if they win one or both of these games it will show everybody that they mean business, but the likelihood of that happening is very low. Of the three possible outcomes, I suspect 0-2 is most probable and the bookies agree.
[match_prediction match=”team-vitality-vs-fnatic-16-07-2022-08-00″ team=”fnatic-lol”]