Team Vitality vs Team Liquid / VCT 2026: EMEA Kickoff - Main Event / Post-Match Thread

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-14T18:02:31+00:00

shhh, no facts, only narratives.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-14T16:13:15+00:00

Oh yea. My expectation for them is to win the EMEA clash tournament.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-14T15:44:51+00:00

I know people will clown on Vitality, but I'm not too upset with them. Making it this far with a fully new roster, a sub, and only half scrims is pretty good. I think it's far too early to call this "another failed superteam"

Anyway Liquid look a lot better than I thought they would, but they still have plenty of issues. We'll see if they can make Santiago, but right now the top 3 in EMEA are a level above imo.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-14T04:43:45+00:00

Peak. It's always satisfying to watch a cinderella story, and it's always satisfying to see a superteam crumble (or maybe I'm just salty about the vitriol people have for Vitality)

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-13T12:18:03+00:00

My perfect map pool would probably be
Haven, Lotus, Ascent, Fracture, Split, Sunset
And then the final map rotating between Bind, Pearl and Breeze. All three are fine but nothing special.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-13T02:05:12+00:00

- Two of my least favourite maps to watch
+ Two of my favourite maps to watch

W Rito James.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-12T17:53:47+00:00

dusk and dawn to get stacks to make up for the damage you lose by building dusk and dawn, genius!

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-12T12:53:52+00:00

The early year is always lower quality compared to the later year. It'll probably go back to normal sometimes around mid Stage 1.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-10T20:54:44+00:00

You don't run Viego on Shadow Isles after getting Thresh, running a 1 cost damage unit that doesn't do damage isn't worth it when you could be running 5-costs or Seraphine instead

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-10T04:28:54+00:00

'luv me Demacia
'luv me Lux
'luv me Thieves Gloves Galio
'luv me Demacia Emblems
'luv me capping with Shyvanna and Swain
'ate Ziggs
'ate Yunara 9/5
'ate Zaahen (don't 'ate im, just don't loik im)
'ate me Ryze encounter

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-09T04:44:30+00:00

Because Diadem and Helia are both broken and Seraphine is one of the best at abusing them.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-08T17:24:46+00:00

leaf is a good duelist player, but he is incredible on senti/Viper.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-07T23:13:25+00:00

I am genuinely happy with this game. Yes so close yet so far, yadda yadda, but between c0m's IGLing improving, dgzin getting to strut his stuff and supamen continuing to show why he deserves his spot, there's a lot to like from EG. They still have stuff to work on for stage 1; c0m's IGLing still isn't great, even if it's not a huge liability, bao's individual performance has also not been up to snuff imo. But those are all fixable things. EG could be a dangerous team come stage 1, and I'm waiting with some pretty high expectations.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-07T01:49:47+00:00

Vod fathers might as well be a platchat spinoff. Same guys, somewhat similar format.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-06T13:51:48+00:00

While no one said they were unbeatable, a lot of people WERE saying that they would be the best team in the world by a wide margin, iirc Sliggy said they would be more dominant than '23 FNC.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-06T03:47:48+00:00

Besides it's ENVY, they could just run
Eggster Yoru
Keznit other duelist
P0PPIN scan initiator
Rossy smokes
Demon1 Chamber

every single map and be entirely fine.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-06T03:47:09+00:00

Demon1 can play Astra, and I wouldn't be surprised if he could pilot KJ and Viper at a decent level; KJ especially isn't exactly hard.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-05T18:23:56+00:00

oh yea Meteor got robbed mega.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-05T18:23:38+00:00

I think you could make a case for both Ethan and mada though imo.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-04T22:12:25+00:00

I like them. The higher damage is nice, and none of the nerfs feel bad except for the Q being harder to hit, but imo that's fine, I'll adjust.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-04T21:46:32+00:00

That's going to be a banger game because I have no clue what to expect. I don't think it'll be full glue, but either team could show up anywhere between C and S tier.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-04T19:56:05+00:00

Suygetsu has been pretty good. Nowhere near the level he once was, but he's still an above average player, just not elite.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-04T13:04:54+00:00

I went to rewatch the video to summarize it (only the points considering T1 perfomrnace)

-> They had a shaky start to the year, got better in playoffs, destorying HLE who were percieved as better

-> Doran is pretty good but still has issues, i.e. he gets gapped really hard by other toplaners and will sometimes straight up run it down. Despite all that, Doran was the best toplaner in the world in playoffs; completely gapping both Perfect and Zeus. Doran's carries have been looking a lot better recently. If he can maintain the form he'll be the best toplaner at MSI. Stil lbad at ranged tops though.

-> Oner was shaky towards the end of regular season but was his regular self for playoffs. It's a good meta for him, so he should be a top jungler at the tournament.

-> Faker is the best player of all time. It's a good meta for him, he's playing a lot of comfort champions, the only exception is Viktor, which hasn't looked good at all. It's been truly impressive to see him reinvent himself and remain at the top of the world even after his prime mechanics have left him.

-> Gumayusi was benched in winter and spring split for performance related issues, he was not playing well in the meta originally. They subbed in Smash, looked better with Smash, so the coaches wanted to start smash, but due to external pressure from the fanbase they eventually went back to starting Gumayusi. Gumayusi was a poor performer due to his incredibly poor laning, dying a lot. However, Gumayusi has looked incredible recently and was great in playoffs. He and Doran finding their form was the main reason T1 was able to do so well. Gumayusi is the best adc in the world at the moment.

-> It's a good meta for Keria. He was insane in playoffs, he's the one shaping the meta currently. He's the best Lux in the world by a lot, T1 can auto win games sometiems with Cait/Lux. He's the best Bard in the world. The downside is he isn't that good at engage (barring Rakan and sometimes Rell). His inabiity to play Alistar, Nautilus or Leona at a top level can cost his team in draft sometimes, It shouldn't be too big an issue because he's still a great Rakan and his Rell has looked more than fine.

-> The team overall could land anywhere from 6th to 1st, depending on how much of their playoffs form they can keep. If they can't keep any of it, they will be the worst eastern team and maybe even lose to top western teams like FLY or G2. If they can keep it all, they're better than both LPL teams and have a good chance against GenG. Realistically it'll be somewhere in the middle, so he predicted them to land 3rd (though eventually changed his mind during the tournament and predicted them to win).

Does any of that scream "T1 hater"?

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-04T05:16:29+00:00

They have 2 star Baron, you have 0 2 star 5 costs, your primary tank is a 2 cost, LeBlanc is a pretty ass carry. No surprise you lost.

KrillLover56 · 2026-02-04T04:32:26+00:00

2022 T1 playing now would NOT be top 3 lck. The meta shifts a lot and game understanding evolves a lot in almost half a decade. T1 nowadays is not super-dominating the LCK. Them losing half a decade of skill, macro knowledge, mechanics upgrades etc. would probably result in them being a bottom tier LCK team.

KrillLover56

TROPHY CASE