Team Vitality vs KOI Preview: 2023 LEC Spring Split

Both teams are close to salvation, but KOI started Week 3 of the Spring Split far better than Team Vitality. Here’s our Team Vitality vs KOI preview.

The last round of the 2023 LEC Spring Regular Season has begun! The 10 franchised teams are duking it out one last time before we say goodbye to two squads, and the LEC Spring Group Stage begins. So far, Excel Esports, MAD Lions and Team Heretics are the ones in the danger zone, while Team BDS and G2 Esports have locked in following the Saturday matches. Two teams who are not so far from assured top 8, Team Vitality and KOI will clash on Monday in a match that will surely be one to look out for.

Team Vitality vs KOI Preview

Team Vitality

Team Vitality was the failed superteam of 2022, where Western GOAT Luka “Perkz” Perkovic and his star-studded team failed to qualify for the Summer Playoffs last week. However, the French organization came back with a plan, fielding extremely hyped jungler Zhou “Bo” Yang-Bo, Matus “Neon” Jakubcik, two-time LEC winner Norman “Kaiser” Kaiser and Korean import Kyeong “Photon” Gyu-tae. The team had a great start, dominating Winter Regular Season and the first half of Groups, but couldn’t seal the deal, getting knocked out from the top 4 by SK Gaming.

VIT decided to bring former Fnaitc player and KDA King Elias “Upset” Lipp into the mix, benching Neon for the time being. The German ADC worked wonders for the team, elevating Vitality even higher, and also managing to go deathless in the first round of Spring. While Vitality beat teams such as Winter finalists MAD Lions, Fnatic and SK Gaming, they started to get some losses as well, as Astralis and G2 Esports have proven to be too challenging. On Saturday, they played against Team BDS, who they dominated for most of the game, but Perkz and co. lost the match through a series of mistakes, which lead to BDS getting a Baron and winning the game while they were down almost 5 thousand gold. But that shouldn’t stop Vitality to play their best against KOI.

KOI

Their opponents will be KOI, who almost managed to do something like BDS, but against Excel Esports. The team which bought Rogue was the last bastion of Europe in the 2022 World Championship up until JDG Gaming knocked them out from the Quarterfinals. For 2023, last year’s LEC Champions only changed one member: they swapped Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu for a more carry-oriented toplaner, Mathias “Szygenda” Jensen – but forgot to swap their style to facilitate their new player even just a little bit. This meant that KOI suffered in the Winter Split, and while they were able to clinch enough victories to get to the Group Stage. They shined in Bo3’s and went on to the Playoffs, where MAD Lions took them out so they failed to defend their title.

So far in Spring, KOI had a mixed performance. In the first week, they only managed to beat Team Heretics who are struggling, but in Week 2, they triumphed over Winter Champions G2 Esports and SK Gaming as well – and also gave Fnatic their 2^nd win of Spring, and 4^th overall victory in 2023. KOI played against Excel Esports on the first day of the final round, and they managed to turn the game around after being dominated by the British squad, which now has Felix “Abbedagge” Braun in the midlane instead of Vincent “Vetheo” Berrié. While KOI is still not very good at letting Szygenda do his thing, they have allowed the Dane to play Jayce a few times, and he’s done so spectacularly, giving competition to MAD Lions toplaner Kim “Photon” Dong-hyeon. But at the end of the day, KOI is still the same, botlane-centric team with a stable midlaner and a unique jungler as last year, which means that the toplaner will be a supporting character more often than not.

The last match of the Spring Regular Season will be a sight to behold, as we can watch two of the best midlaners, Perkz and Emil “Larssen” Larsson clash, while Upset and Kaiser will do their best to shut down Adrian “Trymbi” Trybus and Markos “Comp” Stamkopoulos in the botlane. Vitality will have to look out for Kim “Malrang” Geun-seong, who should be able to track Bo easily, such as Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir did in Saturday’s match. Hopefully, toplane won’t be a snoozefest, and both Photon and Szygenda will be unleashed. Tune in for the final Bo1 of the Spring Split at 10PM CET, and keep an eye out for more previews on ESTNN!