Team Vitality's LEC season is finally over, with an underwhelming last place. Fans are already discussing the future lineup. Was star mid laner Perkz the problem?
"It's finally over", this might have been the thoughts of players, staff and fans of Team Vitality's League of Legends team. The roster said goodbye to this season sitting in last place of the LEC and a breathtaking record of 1 win to 8 losses. On the final weekend of the regular season Vitality lost again Excel, Team BDS and KOI and failed to achieve an at least "happier end".
Fans were already discussing the future of the Vitality's lineup, and now star mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perkovic was chosen as the sacrificial lamb on Reddit.
Team Vitality In Shambles –Was Perkz The Problem?
It's safe to say, that this weekend was the last time that we saw this iteration of the Team Vitality Roster. After a catastrophic string of performances and losses against everyone (beside SK Gaming) things have to change. Fans were already discussing the future of the roster members, but now star mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perkovic moved into their focus.
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In a viral Thread on the League of Legends Subreddit, titled "The Perkz Hate Train", users are discussing the role, that Perkz played in the downfall of Vitality. And despite the hinting title, this thread is more about defending Perkz from the ongoing criticism.
User "Arcuran" opened the discussion with sharing his views on the mid laners performance:
[...]However that is besides the point, the general consensus seems to be "Perkz" is the issue, and I just don't get it. Is he preforming to western GOAT level? Of course not, but honestly, I feel like most the hate he's getting is from people that just haven't been watching the games.
The team is a mess, I don't think it's fair to put all the hate on one player, none of them have been "good" this season, I actually think Perkz has been the least of their issues. The league community is so reactionary it's insane, and this is just a case of results based analysis. [...]
What followed, was a certainly reasonable discussion about the topic and Vitality's problems (for Reddit standards). Some users are following the evaluation, like "Praiseeee" who painted a bigger picture and took the whole team into responsibility:
Literally none of the VIT players played well this entire split. I don't know how you can look at these games and come to the conclusion that one players is the problem. He is just an other scapegoat after the previous ones are gone.
Others, like the user "finderfolk" pointed out other players as the problem and factor of the recent downfall:
Anyone watching these games should know that it's a wider cohesion issue. Most LEC players think that Upset and Photon are best-in-role and the team isn't doing anything.
If we have to single out players then Kaiser has been a clear weak point on the roster since he joined. He was a marginal upgrade on Labrov at the time, but compared to top tier supports in EU he just doesn't have much impact.
Was Perkz The Problem? Conclusion
Well, this case shows the problems with the evaluation of "problems" or 2 "weaknesses"in team sports. Cases where it's simple to point out a single factor, that causes the problems, are rare. In Team Vitality's case, it's obvious that several factors were coming together.
Maybe the current meta just didn't fit the play style of the squad, maybe the team cohesion wasn't on point, maybe it's the bot lane duo or maybe the jungle. It's hard to tell, since not even statistics will show a clear problem, because every factor is impacting the others.
Normally, Perkz is one of the best Lol players in the LEC, but the whole situation around the team and the pressure, which was increasing with every loss, was just too much for him and the whole roster. But after all it's safe to say, this iteration of Team Vitality couldn't live up to the high expectation, that were present after announcing this "super team"
It will be interesting to see how the situation is going to develop in the next weeks. Vitality has now a long time to think about their next potential moves.
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