Team Vitality has swung the offseason axe and cut four players from its LEC team. On Twitter, the team announced that four players would no longer wear its jersey next year. Top laner Barney “Alphari” Morris, jungler Kang “Haru” Min-seung, bot laner Matyáš “Carzzy” Orság, and Labros “Labrov” Papoutsakis are leaving the organization. Only mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković survives the exodus.
The layoffs put a definitive end to the ‘superteam’ Vitality built to conquer the European competition. Heading into the LEC’s 2022 season, they hand-picked top talent from four different teams. The recipe for success fell flat, however, and the team ended the Spring Split in fifth place.
From bad to worse
Following the disappointing result, Vitality benched jungler Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek and brought Haru on board. The Summer Split initially saw more upswings than the Spring Split did. After six weeks of competition, the squad sat in the top three of the LEC standings. But the glorious days didn’t last long. The standings were close all Summer Split long and, on the final day, Vitality had to play a tiebreaker game to make it to the playoffs. Disaster struck and the team lost the game to Excel, finishing in seventh place.
Though shifts in the roster were inevitable, one change was made by the player himself. On Nov. 11, Alphari announced on Twitter that he is taking time off from competing to reflect on his career so far.
Vitality has not yet announced who will be replacing the four former players on the lineup.
