Vitality bench League star Selfmade ahead of summer split shakeup
Michal Konkol/Riot GamesTeam Vitality have moved their starting jungler, Oskar ‘Selfmade’ Boderek, to the bench and brought in import players Kang ‘Haru’ Min-seung and Zhou ‘Bo’ Yang-Bo to replace him, the organization announced on June 6.
Haru, a South Korean player who competed with X7 Esports in the NLC last split, will take over as the starting jungler while Bo, a touted Chinese prospect from FunPlus Phoenix, will slot in as a substitute in the position.
The organization also announced their new assistant coach in Đorđe ‘Spale’ Spasić.
Vitality cited differences in approaches to the game as reasons for Selfmade’s benching in their statement.
“Roster changers are never easy, but after evaluating out spring split with all of the players, the Team Vitality coaching and team staff felt that the jungle role had the best potential for success if we were to try something new,” Vitality head coach Louis-Victor ‘Mephisto’ Legendre said in the announcement.
LEC Roster update ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/DVXpZzQRN5
— Team Vitality 🐝 (@TeamVitality) June 6, 2022
The move was first reported by Blix in May with the same reasoning cited, differences in their approach to the game, in Vitality’s announcement.
Team Vitality’s performance with Selfmade
Vitality picked up Selfmade on May 26, 2021 after his stint with Fnatic. At the end of 2021 Vitality invested heavily in a new roster consisting of past League of Legends European Champions League winners in Matyáš ‘Carzzy’ Orság, Luka ‘Perkz’ Perković and Barney ‘Alphari’ Morris.
The new European super team did not live up to expectations in the 2022 spring split as the team finished fifth in the LEC regular season, going 9-9, and placing fifth in the playoffs after losing to G2 Esports 3-0 in the second round of the lower bracket.
The last time Selfmade saw international competition was in 2020 with Fnatic when he went to the League of Legends World Championships. He was knocked out in the playoff stage by Chinese side Top Esports.
Vitality will debut their new jungler with the start of the LEC summer split on June 17 against MAD Lions.