In the group stage of VCS Spring 2022 on February 26, SBTC Esports faced off against CERBERUS Esports. This can be seen as a meeting between two teams with quite contrasting performances. CES has been struggling in the SEA Games 31 qualifiers for League of Legends while in VCS Spring 2022, they have only won against the bottom two teams, Team Flash and Burst The Sky Esports. SE, on the other hand, was soaring high with an unbeaten streak of 5 consecutive matches across all competitions. Notably, CES entered this match without their jungler EGO due to issues during the Lunar New Year break in 2022.
However, things did not go as SE and their fans had hoped. Despite CES lacking EGO, jungler Phuc1 performed exceptionally well. On a day when Artemis was somewhat “off,” the top lane for CES operated flawlessly with foreign player Poss teaming up with the jungle-mid duo of Phuc1 and Yado. In game 1, Phuc1 and Yado wreaked havoc in SE’s formation, allowing Artemis to unleash damage. With both Baron and Dragon Soul advantages, “God Dog” had no trouble taking the lead against SE after about 27 minutes of play.
SE managed to maintain a balanced game in the early stages. However, when CES took down 3 members of “Pink Chicken” and secured Baron, the match was nearly under the control of “God Dog.” SE players still tried to regain the game, with Phuc1 and Yado continuing to shine. A missed catch on RonOP allowed CES to bounce back, and SE crumbled afterward. CES ended SE’s unbeaten streak with a convincing 2-0 victory.
With this victory, CES temporarily moved up to second place and wrapped up the third week of competition quite nicely. One more point is that in this match, CES demonstrated dominance despite EGO’s absence. With Phuc1’s stellar performance, CES has solid grounds to be confident in regaining their form and achieving good results in the near future.
As for SE, they “gifted” Teacher Ba a rather unhappy birthday present. With this defeat, SE continues their poor performance in VCS Spring 2022 and is now among the bottom three teams. With their qualification for SEA Games 31 not guaranteed, SE is in a very precarious situation. All their achievements over the past two weeks could go to waste if the “Pink Chicken” cannot secure any results in this Spring 2022 season.
