LoL: The largest European player leaves his team shortly before the new LEC split and is replaced by a rookie

Pro player Luka “Perkz” Perković is regarded as the most successful European player in League of Legends. He has an impressive career behind him. From 2015 to 2020, he was the face of G2 Esports and dominated the LEC. After Cloud9 and Team Vitality, he joined Team Heretics in 2023. However, after a poor start from Team Heretics, he has now been dropped from the main roster.

What makes Perkz so successful?

Perkz was practically the face of G2 Esports and shaped the team’s golden era in the LEC
The Croatian won an impressive 8 times the LEC during his time at G2 and was selected to the All-Pro team 4 times
Perkz was considered the brain of the team, standing out not only for his gameplay skills but also for his shotcalling and dedication to the team’s success
He wanted to win the world championship for himself and was so ambitious that he was willing to change his position in the game. Perkz switched from the midlane to the botlane, to make room for the talented player Caps
In 2019, he was close to winning Worlds but fell short in the finals
Together with Jankos and Wunder, the former G2 trio joined the Spanish team Heretics in 2023

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Team Heretics swaps out two top players after poor performance

What was the plan? With the experienced G2 trio Wunder, Jankos, and Perkz, Team Heretics hoped for more success. However, the new year 2024 did not start as expected in the LEC. The team ended the winter season with a record of 4:5 and was excluded from the playoffs.

What happens next? After the disappointing winter split season, they are facing significant changes in their roster for the LEC Spring split, which begins on March 9.

Team Heretics co-founder Arnau Vidal and LoL general manager Alvar Araneae confirmed in a video on X that Luka “Perkz” Perković has been dropped from the LEC main roster. Instead, the up-and-coming rookie Zwyroo from the academy team will take over the midlane for him.

Previously, the team had trained in Berlin with Perkz on the roster for the upcoming Spring Split and had also played the scrims. Artur Zwyroo Trojan has been playing in the academy league for a longer time and will now play for the first time in the main roster for Team Heretics in the LEC. Also, the supporter Norman Kaiser Kaiser will be replaced by Adrian Trymbi Trybus, the former supporter of Fnatic.

Why was this decision made? One of the problems has been the lack of leadership and communication, especially after the early game. They hope that the new supporter Trymbi will improve in these aspects. The goal is to ensure that the spring split will be more successful for the team.

When they started the scrims for the spring split, however, they noticed that the problems were still there and got worse, which is why they replaced Perkz with Zwyroo. Although both Kaiser and Perkz are said to be talented players and they appreciate their work, they believe that the two new players will provide a better dynamics and synergy in the team.

It was stated:

[…] After analyzing the scrims and the team dynamics, we found that the team dynamics had not improved and that the team was still struggling with many of the issues we had already identified during the first split. Therefore, we were firmly convinced that changes were necessary. […]
Arnau Vidal and Alvar Araneae on X

You can watch the entire statement on X:

Jankos speaks out, disagrees with the statements in the video

The jungler Jankos from Team Heretics spoke about the statement in his Twitch stream and said the following:

I don’t know how much I can say about this, because they can kick me from the team whenever they want. But I simply disagree with this statement. I mean, I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree. And if I get kicked for it, then that’s fine.
Jankos on Twitch

Here, Jankos refers to the part in the statement where it was said that the team had not improved and was still struggling with the same issues.

Of course, the same problems will still be there when starting with the scrims, which are meant to solve the problems. […] I don’t believe that the team has not improved. I don’t agree with that statement. I think the team has significantly improved in the last 2 weeks or since we started scrims. […] I can’t go into details. But I think the team has improved, even with Luka in the team. […] We are working to solve the problems.
Jankos on Twitch