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Fnatic: The Fallen Gods
Team Vitality: The Rise Of The Bees
Versus: The Head to Head Showdown
Before the season, Vitality was placed forth in the most of preseason EU LCS rankings. Their roster wasn’t looking as hot and shiny as H2k; they weren’t coming off a Worlds semifinal appearance like Origen was and they didn’t have one of the best junglers in the world for two seasons, as Fnatic did. During the season, Vitality found a way to lose to ninth place ROCCAT twice, gave Taric his only victory of this season, and finished third.
And yet all of that doesn’t matter because Vitality is actually the best team in the league right now. Yes, not getting the round-off and playing H2k in semifinals doesn’t look like the easiest path, but Shaunz’s Bees are ready to conquer Rotterdam. Plus Shook might become the first non-Fnatic member to win multiple EU LCS titles and on home soil to boot. What a story.
The Building Blocks Towards A Macro Game
If you only watched Vitality games from time to time, you might get bored. Macro-focused Vitality play very slow and methodical games, going from objective to objective and executing the gameplan. They have the third longest game time in the EU LCS at more than 37 minutes on average. If you’re not getting bored, you’re enjoying it simply for the high-quality macro play. While Gamers 2 slaughter the opposition with their exquisite team fighting and skirmishing power, Vitality just play the map, gaining advantages through the jungle invading and securing vision. Their unique compositions like Bard/Zilean are exciting to watch, and I hope to see more of that.
The cornerstone of the Vitality squad is their support player, Raymond "kaSing" Tsang. The former H2k-Gaming support player, who could have easily ended up on TSM, decided to bail out the SoloMid empire for the newly formed Vitality squad - and, seemingly, made the right decision. kasing leads the league in wards placed per minute at 1.43. kaSing’s leadership allows the formerly most volatile jungler in Europe, Ilyas ‘Shook’ Hartsema, to do what he does best - invade. kaSing and Shook run into the enemy jungle, flooding it with wards and unlocking the entire side of the map for future Vitality plays. Unlocking Shook and preventing him from simply being the third summoner spell for Cabochard worked wonders for the French-based squad and now they’re the best macro team in the league.
The Carries In The Shadows
Those two build a foundation for Erlend ‘nukeduck’ Våtevik Holm, Lucas “Cabochard” Simon-Meslet and Petter “Hjarnan” Freyschuss. The Norwegian mid laner has rebounded admirably after a lackluster 2015 season on ROCCAT and is safely the second best mid laner in the entire league right now. nukeduck plays a wide variety of champions, pushing the waves and roaming across the map, reminding people of the glorious 2013 days, where the young nukeduck was crushing the likes of peak xPeke, Froggen, Alex Ich and Bjergsen.
Cabochard went from being a Gragas and Maokai two trick on Ninjas in Pyjamas into the next big carry top laner. Not only that, but he spent the entirety of 2015 in the shadow of Fnatic’s star rookie Huni and H2k’s brick wall in the top lane, Odoamne. Now Cabochard is the best top laner in the league, leading all top laners in kill participation, KDA, and gold difference at fifteen minutes.
Hjarnan remains the same stable marksman as before. While most expected him to be the main carry of H2k in 2015 after Febiven left to Fnatic, it never happened. Hjarnan took a backup role, supporting Odoamne and Ryu in their engages and contributing a steady, but never downright overwhelming stream of damage. Considering that he and kAsing don't play for the lane as the latter roams a lot to secure vision with Shook, Hjarnan is doing an admirable job and surely will be able to boost Vitality’s chances from the shadows, despite people not expecting him to be the main threat.
2015 was a spectacular year for Fnatic. They won both EU LCS splits, including a perfect 18-0 split record in the Summer. They pushed SKT T1 to a full five game series at the Mid-Season Invitational and made it to the Semifinals at the 2015 Season World Championship.
That was then; this is now.
To Rebuild Again
After such a successful year, nobody could've guessed that Fnatic would have to once again rebuild their roster from the ground up. But that's what they were faced with after longtime captain, Bora "Yellowstar" Kim, and Korean duo, SeungHoon "Huni" Heo and YeuJin "Reignover" Kim left for the warmer waters of the NA LCS. With Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten and Martin "Rekkles" Larsson locked in for the 2016 Spring Split, Fnatic set out to find replacements for their Captain and Korean duo.
Their new signings came in the form of former Dignitas Top laner Noh "Gamsu" YoungJin, Worlds Semifinalist and former Samsung Blue Jungler Lee "Spirit" Dayun, and former SK Gaming Support Lewis "Noxiak" Felix. The addition of Spirit brought some excitement towards the roster, but Gamsu and Noxiak tempered expectations. Nobody thought Fnatic would easily replicate their performance from the previous year, and they were right.
Fnatic played with their new starting five through the first four weeks of the split. Despite wins over Origen and H2k-Gaming, Fnatic was 5-3 and not growing at the rate that they wanted. It was time to make a change. Citing differences in game philosophy and communication issues, Fnatic benched Noxiak and added Swedish rookie Johan "Klaj" Olsson to the starting lineup.
Fnatic found some success with their new Support, beating Elements and finishing the first half of the split 6-3. However, the honeymoon period was short lived as Fnatic fell to Unicorns of Love the next day. They managed to bounce back and upset first place G2 Esports in Week 6, but couldn't find any consistency as they headed into the IEM Katowice in 5th place with an 8-6 record. Whatever problems Klaj's presence fixed off the Rift, it didn't appear he was solving any of the issues on it.
The IEM Buff
As for the IEM Season X - World Championship itself, nobody gave Fnatic any shot of winning. The team was widely inconsistent and had only found two wins against teams ranked higher than them in the standings all split. Their group included LPL 1st place Qiao Gu Reapers, NA LCS 2nd place Counter Logic Gaming, and a struggling yet still formidable SKT T1. All teams that would easily be considered better than the middle of the pack EU LCS team.
As it would turn out, Fnatic found a few keys to success during their time at the international competition, aggression, and adaptation. While the average skill level was higher than their weekly competition, the biggest change was the format of the competition. For the first time with their current roster, Fnatic was able to play best-of-3 series rather than one-off matches.
Once again Rekkles pulled out an ace in the hole in International competition, with his Jhin going 5-0 and leading Fnatic to an unlikely Finals berth. However, SKT T1 rightly recognised Jhin as a linchpin in their victories and banned it away in all three matches resulting in a swift 3-0 defeat for Fnatic.
Walls Come Tumbling Down
Returning to the EU LCS for the final two weeks of regular season competition, Fnatic couldn't maintain any of the momentum they had built up at IEM Katowice. They went 1-3 in their last four games, including a 0-2 Week 9 performance, dropping them to 6th place in the standings.
Unlike in their IEM performance, Fnatic looked uncoordinated as a team and lacking as individuals in the final week of the season. Gone was the aggressive playmaking from a couple of weeks prior. Fnatic's opponents dictated the pace and action of the games from beginning to end. Gamsu's front-line initiations were poor, Spirit had no jungle pressure, Klaj was repeatedly caught out of position, and Febiven and Rekkles were unable to live up to their roles as carries. If this is the Fnatic we see in playoffs, forget about Fnatic not making it to the finals for the first time, they won't even win a single game.
It's almost unheard of for Fnatic to be underdogs in an EU LCS playoffs game. Not since the Summer split of 2014 have they been in this position and yet here they are standing down the barrel of defeat at the hands of Shook once again. It seems almost as if at every point in the matchup Vitality are superior. They've had better drafts, better macro play, and better team play. Wherever Fnatic flounder is precisely where Vitality succeeds.
The Top Side
Once again Fnatic looked towards a Korean top/jungle duo, but this year they haven't had nearly the same effect. Both Gamsu and Spirit have had shining moments on Fnatic and at other times, they've looked like they weren't even in the same room as the rest of their teammates. Gamsu has been placed on tanks for most of his time on Fnatic, despite the fact he showed his best performances on carry tops on Dignitas. Spirit has also struggled due to poor drafts, often being forced on aggressive junglers with three losing lanes.
Shook and Cabochard, on the other hand, have taken to dismantling their opponents on every occasion. They've both been criticised for their playstyle, but on Vitality both of them have flourished under a clear game plan. Cabochard's laning prowess has remained as deadly as it was last year, but he's managed to add a new dimension to his game. He's played several of the meta tank top laners, and he's even been able to pull out some pocket picks in the form of Nasus and Lucian. He's played with 3% less gold this year, and yet has become more influential on the game.
The Rise And Fall Of A Superstar
Febiven's debut season was nothing short of spectacular. After struggling with choking offline for years in the challenger scene, he came into the LCS with a point to prove. His Spring season was simply serviceable, but once summer hit, there was no looking back for the Dutch mid laner. He took his talents to the world stage and seemed to go from strength to strength at Worlds, proving himself as one of the best mid laners in the world.
At the same time, Nukeduck was making his return to the LCS after spending a year on the sidelines due to a ban. Despite a considerable amount of hype around Nukeduck for his aggressive assassin play, he spent most of the year playing mages and poke champions. On a dysfunctional Roccat his more calculated playstyle that he'd developed was not nearly as effective, but when Roccat started to hit their stride towards the end of the year it was on the back of Nukeduck.
This split, however, it's been Nukeduck who has proven to be the superior mid laner. While Febiven has been hit with the dreaded second-year syndrome, Nukeduck has gone from strength to strength on a team with far more side lane pressure than what was afforded to him on Roccat. Febiven appears to be in the same situation Nukeduck was in last year. Without the pressure from his top side, he's struggled to affect games, and that's been an issue for the struggling Fnatic lineup.
The kaSing Effect
The biggest gap between these teams has to be the supports. kaSing has brought the same qualities from his time on H2k, and it's lead Vitality to a third place finish. Fnatic, on the other hand, was forced to change their supports after Noxiak failed to synergize with the team. His replacement, Klaj, has not had the best of rookie splits. While he places far more wards than his predecessor, kaSing places even more, and he does so with far fewer deaths. Despite playing eight games less than kaSing, Klaj has died eight times more, and he has the highest team death percentage in the league at 27.4%.
Klaj's champion pool is another issue as he's struggled outside of his comfort Thresh. He has played Braum and Alistar, but hasn't looked comfortable on either champion, and his laning isn't all that strong either. kaSing also has far superior synergy with his jungler and has the second highest kill participation of any support.
Ultimately, it would take a miracle for Fnatic to win this series. You can point to their performances at IEM, but their results in the league after that have left us scratching our heads. Fnatic require a fundamental change to the way they play to have any chance to beat Vitality, and with only two weeks of preparation, it's highly unlikely they can do so.
AdsMoFro: Vitality 3-1 Fnatic
Wonderful: Vitality 3-0 Fnatic
2DKeith: Vitality 3-1 Fnatic
JonGalt: Vitality 3-1 Fnatic
PinkRambo: Vitality 3-0 Fnatic
739: Fnatic 3-2 Vitality. Because if I get it right, Imma expose the whole staff so hard #believe.
Zess: Vitality 3-0 Fnatic
Airheart: Vitality 3-0 Fnatic