The League of Legends European Championship 2022 Spring Split is just getting started this year, but the underdogs are already rising to the top—and some favorites aren’t off to a good beginning in the competition.
Before the start of the European tournament, Team Vitality were deemed one of the favorites on paper. After the conclusion of their first week’s matches, though, the situation doesn’t look good for the superteam, who are yet to get their first victory in the tournament. They lost to MAD Lions on Friday, to Fnatic on Saturday, and to Excel Esports today.
In today’s 38-minute match, both teams had a calm early game with no kills until the sixth minute, when Patrick secured a kill onto the enemy AD carry. After that, Excel scored the first dragon of the match, but Vitality’s top laner Alphari secured a solo kill on Finn’s Jayce to equalize the initial kill difference.
Both teams traded kills in a few skirmishes, but Excel came on top of most of these exchanges. Vitality secured the second dragon of the match, but Excel won the next crucial teamfights near objectives and secured three more dragons. With Infernal Soul, Excel looked entirely in control of the game.
Even after gaining a considerable lead, Excel didn’t lose their composure and took no unnecessary fights with the opponents. As a result, Vitality had to contest objectives like the Baron, and the Excel players outclassed them. After acquiring the Baron buff, Excel pushed down the lanes and took down tier two towers. The last teamfight happened near the Elder Dragon when Vitality had to win the objective to turn the match’s fate. They secured the objective, but that wasn’t enough to take the win.
Excel were leading in gold difference and experience, and they brute-forced the fight against Vitality. After that, Excel rushed towards the base and took down the Nexus comfortably to hand Vitality their third upset of the week.
The LEC Spring Split week one ends today, but week two picks back up on Jan. 21. Vitality will try to break their losing streak when they face Team BDS at 2pm CT on Friday.
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