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Team Vitality eye victory in the LCS Spring Split
The squad are riding high in the LCS, but can they maintain their momentum? We find out.
The EU LCS’ newest squad, Team Vitality, got off to uneven start to the Spring regular season, losing to ROCCAT in their very first match. But Nukeduck, Shook, Cabochard, Hjärnan and kaSing soon found their form together, and are currently enjoying a six-game win streak and sitting joint first in the table. As such, Vitality have already guaranteed themselves a spot in the split playoffs, but with games still to come against major European contenders like G2 and Fnatic, as well as a first round bye up for grabs for finishing first or second, they can’t afford to put on the cruise control.
We caught up with the team, including manager Kévin “Shaunz” Ghanbarzadeh during the mid-season break afforded by last weekend’s IEM Katowice tournament to find out how they’re meshing together, what their goals for the year are, and just how much bro-love Hjärnan and kaSing have for each other (Answer: a lot).
Vitality are on a six-game winning streak right now – did you see that happening beforehand?
Hjärnan: We had rough start in the LCS, but we are starting to understand what we need to do as a team to have a better chance to win.
Nukeduck: I saw it coming by the rate we improved compared to other teams, the drafts and understanding we had we're just better at that time than what other teams had. Right now I think we are not ahead of the curve anymore in strategy, so it will be harder.
Shook: Yes. I've always believed Vitality can beat every other team in Europe and I don't think we will be dropping that many games going into playoffs.
Shaunz: We just prepared the best with the guys, taking practice seriously, respecting work ethic and being really methodical and clean in our game approach.
Shook, kaSing and the team greet fans
© Riot Games
What do you put your hot streak down to?
Shook: We try our best to improve every day of the week. We put a lot of time and effort into practice and it shows. We also get along quite well outside of the game.
Shaunz: The team being more and more on the same page, they were all coming in with different backgrounds, but once we set up what was the best for our team and everyone agreed, we managed to get an answer to all the situations as a team.
Cabochard: We understand the game correctly and have gifted players that can play a lot of different things, so I suppose it helps us either in champ select or to progress faster.
Hjärnan: kaSing.
kaSing: Hjärnan.
Are you guys feeling confident after your winning games?
Shook: Team Vitality have always been confident: even after losing games we know what goes wrong and we aim to never repeat the same mistakes again. We feel confident going up against every other team.
Shaunz: Yes we are confident, as long as we practise and understand what is good and what is not. We can have trouble if we are not ahead of the curve in terms of understanding the meta.
Hjärnan: I don’t really think we are thinking of it too much, we just try to focus game by game.
Do you think Cabochard particularly can claim to be the best toplaner in EU right now?
Nukeduck: There could definitely be a case made for it, but every player does different stuff for his team and it's hard for me to know which one is best.
Shook: Yes, Cabochard is a beast. He does have some competition coming from the likes of Odoamne and Vizicsacsi.
Shaunz: Yes, and he still didn't play his best champion, Maokai.
Cabochard: Yes, definitively. There is a debate for best ADC as well.
The team huddles up
© Riot Games
Do you guys expect to keep up your form? How hard have you been training?
Nukeduck: We'll keep the form for sure. We did take a small break while I went to Norway and barely played, but it just made me more motivated for the hard week of training we have leading up to the Week 8 games against FNC and G2.
Cabochard: Yes, the aim of that spring split was to finish first and we'll still do everything to achieve that.
kaSing: I hope so, we've been practising a lot now since the short break because of IEM Katowice, and it's been going great!
Do you feel like you're progressing in terms of teamwork and getting to know each other?
Shook: We learn more every single day. We narrow down what mistakes we still make and try to aim to be the team that makes the fewest mistakes.
Hjärnan: I think we are getting stronger every week: we all try to improve with help from Shaunz, and it’s working well so far.
kaSing: I think we're doing really good now compared to the early weeks, when the majority of us had different opinions on how the game should be played, but I think it has gone much better since then.
Shook in action at the LCS
© Riot Games
Do you spend a lot of time together as a team outside of games and practice?
Nukeduck: We spend pretty much 90 percent of every day with each other, but that is usually sitting next to each other on the PCs. We do go out together for drinks or food from time to time.
Shook: We do talk outside of League but most of our days are spent having team practice or playing solo queue, so we already spend a lot of time with each other being in the same room.
Shaunz: We are in the split so the main focus is League of Legends. The players get along with each other pretty well already, so I don't want to force them into some random team bonding activities when their time could be better spent training. However, we do some nights out on Friday evenings especially to make sure we have a little break every week.
kaSing answers questions post-match
© Riot Games
Your match against H2k was a real war of attrition. How much confidence did you guys take from coming out on top against one of the other really strong teams in EU right now?
Nukeduck: It felt really good to win against H2k. We were really gimped in the way that the bard ult + zil bombs got denied from Thresh Lantern. That was the only combo we had for catching or starting teamfights so winning without that felt good. If the combo worked as we thought we would have ended that game in under 30 minutes with ease.
Shook: We always knew we could beat H2k. We've always been confident in our ability to beat every other team in the European LCS. It still felt good winning against them since I see them as our biggest competitor.
Cabochard: It was nice winning versus them after such a long game, but we could have played the midgame way better and ended earlier, I think.
Hjärnan: The game we won was really messy, and it wasn't really a clean win, so not too much confidence gain from that game.
G2 also seem to be favourites right now. Has their performance surprised you? Do you think you have what it takes to beat them?
Shook: Yes, G2 did surprise me by being in the top of the rankings for the past weeks, but I think teams will start to figure them out. We've won against them before, I don't really see us losing to them.
Shaunz: Yes it was definitely surprising with two new Koreans and Kikis going top but they are meshing well together. We're feeling confident against them. We usually never had trouble when we practise against them and we won in LCS against them.
Hjarnan greets fans at the EU LCS
© Riot Games
Where do you see the team finishing in the playoffs?
Nukeduck: Right now I'm fully focused on trying to get the top two spot in regular season. I haven't put much thought into anything after that just yet.
Shook: I think Vitality will end up being top two. We of course aim to be number one but anything can happen in playoffs.
Shaunz: If the meta doesn't switch too much, we have a good shot at finishing first or second, I think.
Cabochard: We'll try everything to finish first and go to play in Shanghai versus top teams from other regions.
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