Splyce vs Team Vitality

For our third match of the day, we have an incredibly exciting clash between Team Vitality and Splyce. This game will also be a rematch of their 2018 Spring Split third-place match, and even though both teams are currently on different trajectories, they're still as strong and capable as ever.

Team Vitality, however, are entering with a lot more hype and momentum. Last week was a strange one seeing how we had the opportunity to see their full potential, and abysmal inconsistency and volatility in a two-day period. It was the de facto Vitality weekend. Their game against SK Gaming was a shocking one, seeing how they were completely unable to step up and mount an offensive from the very get-go.

They fought back as best they could in the mid game, but it was far too late. They had the worse team comp, they failed to execute it early, and perhaps above all -- they were sloppy and reactive on an individual level. At this level of play, teams are able to capitalize just off of a single opening, and Vitality gave SK a metric ton.

Coming into their game against Schalke 04 a day afterwards, it was hard predicting how well they would play. They're known to be somewhat mentally fragile, but you would never guess it based off of their performance against Schalke. It was an absolute master class. To be fair, Schalke made egregious errors left and right as well, but it was Vitality that was able to dictate the tempo and dominate on all fronts.

Schalke was overaggressive and Vitality always had an answer. They capitalized and snowballed every lead they found. That led to a five thousand gold lead at the fifteen minute mark, and just ten minutes later they managed to double it. It was a commanding level of play from Vitality, and it left everyone in attendance in awe.

We got to see their immense highs, but also brutal lows. Which Vitality will show up this time? We never really know. Their bravado knows no bounds, but it's also their biggest weakness -- given that their opponents know how to capitalize.

As for Splyce, it seems as though they have settled down into mediocrity. There's no shame in doing so, but seeing how they had a ton of potential coming into the split, one had to wonder how high they could go. It seems that yet another gatekeeper year is in store for the boys in black and yellow, and that's perfectly fine. They're still highly dangerous and capable, and you can never really count them out, especially not if they manage to get to the late game when their staple late game teamfighting starts to shine

They're working hard, and they're trying to diversify and become a multi-layered team, but it's just not that evident on the Rift. They're struggling, and it doesn't matter against whom they're playing. They're struggling against the likes of G2 Esports, but also against the ninth-ranked Excel Esports. When you give them a big enough lead they can close things out, but the path towards it is almost always arduous and painfully long.

They are displaying a very solid understanding of the meta game and they have the fundamentals down, they're just making mistakes individually and they're out of sync at the most random of times. That's perhaps the definition of Splyce -- exceptional when you least expect it to, and mediocre when it's an "easy win".

We're going with Vitality on this one, although there's always this lingering feeling that we might be wrong for doing so. They're a top tier team, there's no doubt about it, but predicting their level of play on a game-by-game basis is often downright impossible. Will they mesh well? Will they start off on the right foot and dominate from the very get-go, or will they implode and completely freeze like against SK Gaming?

You never really know, and it's one of the things why watching their games feels so exciting, albeit frightening. Regardless, they're in the Top 3 for a reason, they're strong and highly capable, and they should, by all means, be able to take down Splyce. Their early game is almost legendary, and they shouldn't have a problem with Splyce's more subdued, meek approach.