Having come within touching distance of glory,
Team Vitality now find themselves on the sidelines of the
2026 League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) Versus playoffs after a 1–2 elimination at the hands of Karmine Corp. Despite the defeat, the Bees proved that even titans can bleed, leaving fans with a bittersweet sense of what might have been. In an exclusive interview, head coach
Patrick “Pad” Suckow-Breum sat down with
Sheep Esports to discuss the team’s controversial Game 3 draft, the frustration of falling just short, and what lies ahead for the Spring Split.
What was the thought process behind your Game 3 draft, which many criticized after the stomp?
Patrick "Pad" Suckow-Breum: “Our thought process was that we would beat them in front-to-back comps, where games would be less chaotic, because what we felt throughout the series was that we were winning the 5v5 team fights. That said, Yike (Martin Sundelin) did a good job for Karmine Corp, especially in game one, finding many creative angles early on. His Vi in the first game, and then his Jarvan IV in the second, both made the game very volatile.
But yeah, our read on the series was that if we could speed our game up in terms of how and when we took tempo, while making sure that we forced them into actually team fighting us rather than looking for picks in between, that was a winning recipe.
Obviously, the comps we played are based on scrim results, where we were not 6k gold behind at minute 15, you know? Like yes, of course in hindsight, when you're 6k down, we do not kill a single member of the enemy team. But in a game where we reach two items at the same point, and the Rapid Firecannon Twisted Fate comes in, they just don't have a target to kill—that is the idea behind the comp.
So in your mind, the draft could have worked and this was just one of those games that would’ve been a remake angle in practice?
Pad: Yeah, pretty much. Same as what I'm going to tell the lovely lads when I'm done here—I’ll do my team debrief after this—is that we were punished in areas of the game where we have been inconsistent. So while it sucks to fucking lose, especially when you're one game away from Barcelona, it's good lessons to take into next split because we are not far off. We can see it, right?
During our winter bootcamp we were probably not expecting to go toe to toe with KC this early into the year, but that said, today should have been a win. We'll take it as a sad learning lesson instead.
Vitality has transformed into a very aggressive team this year. For example, Matyáš "Carzzy" Orság flashing forward on Ezreal or Corki, sometimes leading him to his death. How do you encourage that confidence while making sure it doesn’t go too far and stifle creativity?
Pad: I think I’m always probably more on the forgiving side of creative, artistic freedom for my players, because I typically also look to hire players that are mechanically gifted—Naak Nako (Kaan Okan), Carzzy, two prime examples of this, right?
I think the way that you coach around this is that rather than put too many constrictions on “you cannot do this” or “you cannot do that,” it’s more like: this is the information you have available, and based on this info, now is a good time. And the windows that they’re working in, are one- or two-second windows—where you see someone exit the wave in the wrong way, or you see someone on a ward, or you see someone who plays as if they have Flash when they don’t have Flash.
Like exactly how Carzzy jumped forward on the Vi when she Q’d into the bush and the game was won. These moments will quickly be forgotten, right? He wins us the game there, by the way. Like on that Ezreal E, he wins us the game. When we kill Vi there, that’s him winning the game.
But obviously it’s easier to remember his Corki from yesterday, where he W-Flash forward around dragon, right? So for me, it’s about helping the players make sure that they use information to as high a level as possible to make that decision-making in the moment, because it’s not really coachable. I cannot say, “Click here, click there, click there.” It’s just processing information.
What is the one thing you most want to improve or tell your players to work on for next split?
Pad: Not even necessarily on a good day, but even on a medium day—we can beat any team in the league, and that’s a lot better than our situation was last year. And on a good day, we can stomp any team in the league. But unfortunately, on a bad day, we can still lose to KC 1–2. So we’ll have to iron that out—to make the bad days slightly less bad—so we can still have bad days and win.
We also need to give Fleshy (Kadir Kemiksiz) more time to develop him as an LEC support. The support role especially, for fighting for the top four spots, is the hardest role by far, because it’s really a difference in level—how you read the map, how you view tempo. It is a hard role to play at a high level. Obviously on a base level, fundamentally, mechanically, it doesn’t matter. But how you read the map is very important.
Do you feel like the balance of power in the LEC is shifting this year, with more teams able to contest the top?
Pad: That’ll depend on how NAVI responds to this, right? I think they were probably the other team on people’s minds. And when you have this good of an initial split, but you flunk out like they did now, it requires good mental and strong confidence from the individual players to believe that their elimination was a fluke, right? They have to believe that this was not their normal level.
And I think it seemed like they have already shown that they can play some good League of Legends. So I think this year is probably going to be very exciting, and hopefully we can go and contest for those top spots.
Do you feel the overall level of the LEC is good right now?
Pad: The base level is definitely higher, but it’s still not super high. I’m not super unhappy with my team’s development, right? We were genuinely in contention to win this split—if we beat MKOI or KC, whatever, we’ve shown that we can go toe to toe with these teams. That’s very early for us in the project, so maybe it’s just good job on us, and that’s nice. We take those.
But it can also show that the top teams have started a bit slower. G2 came out of the gate a bit slower, MKOI came out a bit slower. But I think they are ramping up, and the baseline for middle-of-the-pack teams has been higher. So maybe the top two teams were slower, but the fourth-seventh have started off stronger.
What’s the plan for Vitality until Spring Split?
Pad: That’s probably too early for me to fully say. We’ll have a little bit of a break, and then we’ll make sure that we continue early enough so that, at a bare minimum, we enter Spring Split on the same level and can keep building. But I don’t know if we have big plans for a bootcamp yet—I need to talk to upper management.
You came very close this split. What are your expectations for the next one?
Pad: Has to be top four, right? We got fifth again. I’m so fucking tired of this position [laughs]. Fuck this position! I need to do better. We need to do better to make sure that we get that top four. That’s just how it is. There’s nothing else than that.
Like, fifth place, fine. We’ll find a way to justify it between ourselves for this split, and then we’ll push on. But realistically, we’re all giga disappointed because it felt like a completely winnable split. Going out is just frustrating, because there was definitely more.
On the other side, you can see all the things we can still improve on, which is typically a good sign, because then we know exactly what we need to address to get better for Spring.
Is there anything else you want to say to Vitality fans?
Pad: I mean, just thank you for always supporting us. You guys are the GOATs, defending me from all of the lovely KCorpers… Sorry for not taking down KC today. We should have done that, and you guys deserved it. So, my fucking bad—I’ll do it next time.”
