Vitality teamfought its way Friday to a 2-0 sweep of Team ROCCAT to open Week 5, Day 2 of the European League of Legends Championship Series in Berlin.
While ROCCAT (2-4, 7-9 match record) went for a siege composition in an effort to win the game through objective control, Vitality decided to go for broke with a Kog'Maw pick for Erlend "Nukeduck" Våtevik Holm in the mid lane. Despite Vitality securing the first kill and tower in the bottom lane, this game was incredibly even all the way up until the 20-minute mark. At that point, Vitality (2-4, 5-8 match record) began to pull away on the back of superior objective control. One kill is all it would take to break the game wide open, as Vitality would leverage the kill to gain control of the map, opening up the game for a 27-minute Baron. Continuing to swarm all over the map, Vitality finally locked up the 35-minute win on the back of Nukeduck's three kills in the final engagement as part of his 5/1/4 KDA (kills/deaths/assists).
Game 2 was a bit more of the same, with the teams sticking close to each other for the majority of the time. Though ROCCAT did use its laning-focused composition to take a bit of a lead in the first 20 minutes, it once again succumbed to the teamfighting prowess of Vitality. Once the midgame hit, Vitality blitzed its way to the finish line by taking fight after fight and giving ROCCAT absolutely no breathing room. One pick at the 29-minute mark turned into a Baron for Vitality, which in turn translated into 10 more kills over the final five minutes of the game. Mid laner Nukeduck, this time on Corki, once again torched ROCCAT, amassing an impressive 8/0/6 KDA and game-high 26,900 damage dealt to champions in the 34-minute win.
Vitality will be back in action after Rift Rivals concludes with a matchup against Ninjas in Pyjamas on Thursday, July 13 at 11 a.m. ET, while ROCCAT will face H2K-Gaming on the same day at 2 p.m. ET.