In League of Legends, the dream of a European super team has burst. For spring 2022, the French team Vitality bought some of the best players in Europe: They played with a team consisting of a Croatian, a Welshman, a Czech, a Pole and a Greek. But that was only enough for 5th place in the LEC league. Now a Korean is needed. You also get a huge talent that has fallen out of favor from China.
This was the idea of “Team Vitality”: The French team wanted to buy their way to the top of Europe by force. To do this, they dug deep into their pockets and brought in some of the biggest stars that Europe has to offer:
The team was completed by Czech Carzzy (bot) and Greek Labrov (support).
The announcement was clear: This is now the new power in Europe. All other teams would be crushed. You bought a super team.
LoL: Team spends tens of millions of euros on stars, wants to destroy everyone – Loses every game
This is how it really went: Not so good. The two “US re-imports” Perkz and Alphari had gotten noticeably out of shape in the USA and had problems getting used to Europe.
All in all, observers agreed: they are super players in and of themselves, but it doesn’t work as a team. Not everyone can be the star in a LoL team, it must be clearly regulated which lanes have priority, how you want to win.
The result was that the supposed super team only came in 5th place and were eliminated early in the playoffs.
The German team “Eintracht Spandau” wants to be the slightly different LoL team:
Everything you need to know about the LoL team Eintracht Spandau – in 4 minutes
Team dismisses Selfmade, says: Super player, but it doesn’t fit
You do that now: Team Vitality breaks open the European core before the Summer Split 2022 in the LEC: Jungler Selfmade remains in the team, but will apparently no longer play a role. They are looking for a new team for him.
It is said that Selfmade is an incredibly talented player and also very popular in the team. But LoL is very complex and different styles of play have to come together – if they don’t fit, there have to be changes.
One believes: Selfmade will certainly shine with another team and promises to look for a team for him.
Instead of self-made, they now got Kang “Haru” Ming-seung for the jungle, a Korean. Plus Zhou “Bo” Yang-bo a Chinese as a backup jungler.
Korean ex-world champion and Chinese super talent
Who are the new imports? Haru is a 24-year-old Korean who had his heyday 6 years ago at the age of 18 in Korea: he became world champion with Samsung Galaxy 2017, he snatched the title away from Faker and T1.
But Haru didn’t have a very stable career: in Korea, he tossed around from team to team, never staying in one place for more than a year.
Haru hasn’t played in Korea since June 2021, took a year off, then got back into the LoL business in Latin America and in the second European league, with the X7 Esports team.
That seems to be a typical “It’s not enough for the top teams of the LCK anymore, but I want to keep making money with LoL and it fits for the West” career.
In the USA, top laner Impact is still making a nice professional life to this day after becoming world champion with Faker 10 years earlier.
The 20-year-old Chinese “Bo” is probably the more interesting transfer: Team Vitality gets him formally as a “substitute player”.
But Bo was considered an absolute mega talent for the jungle in China and made it into the starting lineup of FunPlus Phoenix, a top team in the LPL. But he only played there for a short time.
Because BO was then banned due to a match fixing scandal and apparently fell out of favor as a result. He has not played since May 2021.
Now, Team Vitality may be bringing in one of the world’s greatest jungle talents in LoL, who’s also only 20 years old. Bo could maybe become a big star in Europe in a few years.
That was the scandal back then:
Scandal shakes LoL: 38 players, coaches, managers banned – 12 for life