Team Vitality vs Astralis

This here is a "must win" for Vitality. That much is a fact, if ever there was one. They're just not in a good spot, neither individually nor as a team, and while it's stil not time to jump the proverbial ship and sound the alarms, it's nonetheless a wholly disappointing moment for the boys in white and yellow and their record attests to the fact as well -- a record indicative of their many struggles and a thoroughly depressing lack of an identity.

Their game against SK yesterday was... okay. Nothing extraordinary but rather a good, relatively clean game in which they made sure to play out their team comp to the best of their ability and not veer too far out into the fiesta realm. They *did* have a few great plays but praising them for it wouldn't really make much sense, what with them going up against the seemingly worst and least capable team in the LEC -- a title for which there's quite a lot of competition.

Astralis, however, are much stiffer, more idiosyncratic test; they're a challenger that can attack from multiple different angles: their drafts are different, their players are more experienced (compared to SK), their in-game calls and executions, too, are somewhat out of the ordinary. Preparing for such an opponent, therefore, is quite a challenge. Kobbe, Xerxe, and JeongHoon have been on a tear lately and are not to be trifled with whatsoever.

Vitality should still be able to come out ahead, though. They're better on an individual level and if they can create a big enough lead in the laning phase and then snowball, they shouldn't have much trouble in closing things out once the mid and later stages of the game come around. That's a daunting list of "ifs" but they have the tools to do it; fingers crossed!