Team Vitality

History

Team Vitality entered the professional League of Legends on 9 December 2015, after it acquired Gambit Gaming's spot in the 2016 EU LCS Spring Split. The first player signed to the team at the time of the announcement was former TSM support Raymond "kaSing" Tsang. Five days later, Vitality announced the rest of their roster, which consisted of top laner Lucas "Cabochard " Simon-Meslet, jungler Ilyas "Shook" Hartsema, mid laner Erlend "Nukeduck" Våtevik Holm, and kaSing's former teammate, bot laner Petter "Hjarnan" Freyschuss. For their coaching staff, Vitality signed former Gambit Gaming coach Shaunz.

2016

During the 2016 EU LCS Spring Split, Vitality's roster was considered one of the top lineups in the league, finishing in third place with a 13–5 record, behind the surprise first place G2 Esports and second place H2k-Gaming. Cabochard and kaSing were elected to the split's All Pro Team, as the most outstanding players in their positions. In playoffs, however, they were upset by sixth place Fnatic and eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Before the start of the 2016 EU LCS Summer Split, Shook and Hjarnan left the team, the latter due to health reasons. Vitality then signed Kim "Mightybear" Min-soo, the former jungler of Newbee, and acquired bot laner Park "Police" Hyeong-gi from Apex Gaming.

With the new match format, Vitality failed to live up to prior standards, accruing only three match wins throughout the summer regular season with a 3–9–6 series record. Shook returned four weeks into the season and became the starting jungler once again. After winning a tiebreaker against FC Schalke 04, Vitality secured seventh place and avoided playing in the relegation series, although they also missed playoffs.

2017

Prior to the start of the competitive season, Vitality again revamped its roster. Bot laner Pierre "Steeelback" Medjaldi was acquired from Team ROCCAT to replace Police, and Ha "Hachani" Seung-chan, a former support for KT Rolster, was signed to replace kaSing. In the jungle, Vitality initially looked toward Afreeca Freecs jungler LirA, but the deal unexpectedly fell through, as LirA reportedly felt uncomfortable with the move. Vitality instead ended up signing Lee "GBM" Chang-seok as a substitute mid laner, as well as jungler Charly "Djoko" Guillard of the EU CS team Millenium. Top laner Adrien "Alderiate" Wils and support Baltat "AoD" Alin-Ciprian were also signed with the team as substitutes.

With the reorganization of the EU LCS regular season format, Vitality was drafted into Group B for the 2017 EU LCS Spring Split, along with Origen, H2k, Splyce, and the Unicorns of Love. After opening the season with a 1–3 record over three weeks, Hachani was benched. Three days later, GBM moved to the starting mid laner position, while Nukeduck took over the vacant support position. Because of a continuous lack of success, Vitality kept reshuffling their roster around without significant improvement and ended far out of reach of playoff positions in fourth place of the group, only beating Origen twice and the last place team of Group A, Giants Gaming.

For the 2017 EU LCS Summer Split, Vitality signed support Oskar "Vander" Bogdan and got picked into a nearly identical Group B with the recently promoted Mysterious Monkeys instead of Origen. Despite mild improvements thanks to the roster change, Vitality once again finished fourth in their group.

2018

Vitality completely rebuilt their roster around top laner Cabochard going into 2018 and signed veteran jungler Erberk "Gilius" Demir, along with rookies mid laner Daniele "Jiizuke" di Mauro, bot laner Amadeu "Minitroupax" Carvalho, and support Jakub "Jactroll" Skurzyński, who together had won the 2018 Spring Promotion tournament while they were with Giants Gaming. The new roster surprised many with a 7–1 start to the spring regular season with their explosive playstyle; however, as other teams adapted to their strategies, Vitality began dropping games and finished fourth with a 10–8 record. Vitality ended fourth in playoffs as well after defeating H2k 3–2 in the quarterfinals and losing to Fnatic 1–3 in the semifinals and Splyce 2–3 in the third place decider match.

Following a mediocre 5–5 first half of the 2018 EU LCS Summer Split, Vitality signed veteran jungler Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek after week five, hoping that he could improve the roster with his experience. Vitality finished the regular season in second place after winning two tiebreaker games against FC Schalke 04 and G2 Esports. Because of this improvement due to the roster change, Gilius decided to step away from the team as they were performing better with Kikis. In the semifinals Vitality lost against FC Schalke 04, but later managed to defeat Misfits 3–1 in the third place decider match—the latter result earned Vitality the second most championship points, qualifying them for the 2018 World Championship as Europe's second seed.

At the 2018 World Championship, Vitality were drawn into Group B along with LCK third seed Gen.G, NA LCS third seed Cloud9 and LPL favourites Royal Never Give Up (RNG). After going 1–2 in the first week, Vitality upset RNG in the second, but still ended third in their group with a 3–3 record, ending their worlds run.

On 20 November 2018, Riot Games announced Team Vitality as one of ten franchise teams of the newly rebranded European Championship (LEC).

2019

For the 2019 LEC Spring Split, Vitality acquired jungler Lee "Mowgli" Jae-ha from LCK team Afreeca Freecs. The team finished the regular season in fifth place with a 10–8 record and later lost 0–3 to Fnatic in the quarterfinals. Vitality did not make any roster changes going into the 2019 LEC Summer Split and barely clenched a playoff spot after defeating SK Gaming in a sixth place tiebreaker match. In the first round of playoffs Vitality was knocked out by FC Schalke 04, who defeated them 3–1.