In the European professional league LEC in League of Legends, the French team Vitality did not make it to the playoffs. With 4 consecutive losses, the Summer Split 2022 was running against the highly talented “super-team”. This marks the first time Luka “Perkz” Perković (23) misses the playoffs – the Croatian was even considered a candidate for MVP 2022. Before the decisive matches, the team had a 94.6% chance of making it to the playoffs.
This is the situation for Perkz, one of the best LoL players in Europe:
- The Croatian Perkz was for years the driving force behind G2 Esports’s success as a mid-laner and ADC: He won 8 championships with G2 and finished second at the 2019 World Championship. After a lucrative stint in the USA, he returned to Europe in December 2021, aiming to build a “new team” to dominate the league.
- At Team Vitality, he found an organization with a lot of money to assemble a strong team. They acquired some of the best players in Europe: Top-laner Alphari, jungler Selfmade, bot laner Carzzy – all great players.
- When the strategy failed at first, they swapped out Selfmade and brought in players from South Korea and China. Now it seemed to work, before the decisive phase, week 8, Team Vitality had a 94% chance of making it to the playoffs – but then everything went wrong.
Team Vitality had a 94% chance of making it to the playoffs before the last week
This is how the season ended: Amazingly poorly. Until Friday, August 12, everything was going according to plan, as Team Vitality was securely positioned at 9-6 in the playoffs. Before the last week, Team Vitality had a 94.6% chance of making it to the playoffs; they only needed to win one of the last 3 league games.
But from Friday, August 12, they lost their last 4 games of the season in a row.
The last and decisive game on August 14, Team Vitality lost against Excel Esports. It was a tie-breaker for the 8th place in the league, the last playoff spot.
Particularly bitter for Perkz: Key to his defeat was Mikyx, his former supporter at G2. The 23-year-old Slovenian turned it around on Thresh and was able to lead his team to victory with good openings in fights.
An important team fight at 26 minutes went completely against Perkz and his team:
Perkz misses playoffs for the first time in his career
What makes this so tragic? This defeat came as a surprise to almost everyone because Team Vitality was actually solid before week 8: In weeks 6 and 7, the team had won 3 out of 4 games, including against G2 Esports.
At that time, Perkz was still considered a potential league MVP. In an interview, he stated that the last games had been clear victories, not even close. Perkz felt very good about the summer. (via inven).
But then they lost in succession against SK Gaming, Fnatic, and Rogue – slipping down the standings and losing the decisive tie-breaker.
This is the first time in Perkz’s career that he missed the playoffs, as Dotesports reports (via dotesports).
In LoL, the cult jungler Udyr is changing:
Perkz says: Performance was embarrassing, shocking, disappointing
What does Perkz say? He says (via twitter):
Embarrassing, shocked, and disappointed. […] I’m sorry. This will 1,000% not be my last appearance.
Soon after, he tweeted: Just a joke. I will retire and you will never hear from me again. Goodbye.
Perkz, as always. Even during his time at G2, he was considered quite the troll.
How are the fans reacting? Even though Team Vitality is being criticized, many say that Perkz played excellently and deserved success. There are hopes that Perkz will come back again.
Last year, Perkz went to Worlds and G2 had a disastrous year – this year it’s exactly the opposite, a fan comments.
Success in LoL is hard to achieve – Even harder to maintain
What’s behind this: The example of Team Vitality shows that it is not enough to buy strong players together to achieve success. There can then be conflicts over who makes calls, which lane has higher priority, in which player the team funnels its resources.
Apparently, LoL teams need to grow, a hierarchy and harmony must form.
Even in other leagues, wildly assembled teams do not perform well.
In any case, it seems difficult in LoL to stay consistently at the top: Even world champion teams like DWG KIA or FunPlus Phoenix, which seemed extremely strong at their time, have failed in the years following their total dominance when the meta changed or when players left the teams.
An example of why Perkz did not settle in the USA:
LoL: Star player needs a medical cap test, finds it “really embarrassing” from the US league
What does Perkz say? He says (via twitter):
Embarrassing, shocked, and disappointed. […] I’m sorry. This will 1,000% not be my last appearance.
Soon after, he tweeted: Just a joke. I will retire and you will never hear from me again. Goodbye.
Perkz, as always. Even during his time at G2, he was considered quite the troll.
How are the fans reacting? Even though Team Vitality is being criticized, many say that Perkz played excellently and deserved success. There are hopes that Perkz will come back again.
Last year, Perkz went to Worlds and G2 had a disastrous year – this year it’s exactly the opposite, a fan comments.
Success in LoL is hard to achieve – Even harder to maintain
What’s behind this: The example of Team Vitality shows that it is not enough to buy strong players together to achieve success. There can then be conflicts over who makes calls, which lane has higher priority, in which player the team funnels its resources.
Apparently, LoL teams need to grow, a hierarchy and harmony must form.
Even in other leagues, wildly assembled teams do not perform well.
In any case, it seems difficult in LoL to stay consistently at the top: Even world champion teams like DWG KIA or FunPlus Phoenix, which seemed extremely strong at their time, have failed in the years following their total dominance when the meta changed or when players left the teams.
An example of why Perkz did not settle in the USA:
LoL: Star player needs a medical cap test, finds it “really embarrassing” from the US league
