The Croatian Luka “Perkz” Perković is considered the most successful player in League of Legends that Europe has ever produced. From 2015 to 2020, he dominated the European LEC league with G2 and came close to becoming world champion in 2019. Afterward, he was supposed to build Team Vitality in France into a super team. This turned out to be a catastrophic failure in the last two years. Now, at the age of 25, he is reportedly leaving the team.
What makes Perkz so successful?
- The Croatian had a strong run at G2 from 2015 to 2020: He won the league 8 times, was selected to the All-Pro team 4 times, and was regarded as the leader and brain of the team.
- Perkz was so ambitious and eager to win a Worlds title that he even changed positions, moving from the mid lane to the bot lane, to make room for Europe’s second world-class player, Caps. Together, they were only one series away in 2019 from breaking the dominance of Asia and bringing the world championship title to Europe.
- However, in 2020, Perkz gave up this dream and spent a year in the USA, where he also won a title and was selected to the All-Pro team.
That would be Perkz’s dream, to win Worlds once—he was close in 2019:
“Super-Team” in France was supposed to dominate Europe for years
That was the plan: After his stint in the USA, Perkz had the opportunity from 2022 onwards to build a “super team” in France at Team Vitality.
The team owners bought Perkz out of the USA for allegedly €2.5 million and wanted to surround him with elite players so that they could create a super team and compete for the world championship. They brought back top laner Alphari from the USA.
The expectations were high – the team demonstrated in a video how they would dominate all other European teams.
Super-Team remains super unsuccessful, finished last
This is how it went in reality: Really badly. 2022 started the project terribly, when they lost 3 games in a row.
Team Vitality never exceeded the upper mid-level and consistently fell short of expectations. Although they repeatedly placed top-notch European players alongside Perkz, who had shone in other teams, or signed highly talented players from Asia, Team Vitality failed season after season, often barely qualifying for the playoffs and then exiting early.
It felt every season like the team needed a long time to get into shape, looked somewhat stable, only to crumble once the playoffs began.
The latest iteration of the super team had two established German star players, Upset and Kaiser, who had been successful in the past, but even this team flopped, even harder than in 2022: in the Summer Split of the LEC 2023, Team Vitality finished last, winning only 1 out of 9 games.
Perkz reportedly leaves Team Vitality before 2024
This is the latest news: According to a report from BLIX, Team Vitality has parted ways with Perkz after 2 years. They have promoted the academy player Daglas to the main roster. Perkz is said to be looking for a new team.
Is this true? It certainly looks like it. On October 23, Perkz posted a cryptic emoji tweet on Twitter. This is widely interpreted as ‘He is leaving.’ Fans are thanking him and saying goodbye.
Speculation begins on where he will land and who he will play with.
On reddit, Perkz’s career is being mockingly commented on. One user writes about the departure: ‘So Perkz didn’t do anything and pocketed $4 million. Was it worth it, I guess.’
One of the low points for Perkz recently:
LoL: Underdog from Germany knocks out the favorites around super star Perkz
