It’s a disappointing conclusion to
’s 2026 season, a year in which the team showed a lot of promise and genuine hopes of breaking into the top-three in the LEC. This Monday, the Hive faltered in one final best-of-five this year as
reverse-swept them in the
Demacia Cup Global Invitational quarterfinals. This result means that Vitality’s previous best-of-five series win remains 402 days ago, against Team Heretics in the LEC 2025 Summer playoffs.
The 2026 season has established Vitality as regular season demons and perennial playoffs chokers. After placing 3rd, 1st, and 2nd in the LEC Versus, Spring, and Summer Splits, respectively, Vitality managed to win just one playoff series across all three splits: a best-of-three against Fnatic in LEC Versus, out of seven series in total. In fact, during the Spring Split, they became
the first team to be eliminated from playoffs without winning a single map as the #1 seed from the regular season.
The more frustrating part about these underperformances is the amount of talent and flair that the team showed during the regular season. At times, Vitality genuinely looked like contenders for the title, or at least like a team capable of qualifying for MSI or Worlds. In the most important matches of the year, the roster simply crumbled under pressure with poor drafting, individual mistakes, a lack of cohesion, and a penchant for throwing away big gold leads.
Nevertheless, the team did bring a lot of excitement on the Rift through the likes of toplaner
. 2026 was the definitive breakout year for the Turkish star, who bagged the Spring Split MVP among other accolades. His dominant laning phase and nonchalant demeanor made him stand out amongst his peers and gave hope that the LEC can have a hard-carry toplaner on the global stage. With the Demacia Cup, the Bees also qualified for their first international event in eight years, and even managed to take two games away from an LCK team.
