2021’s late season for Vietnamese League of Legends, VCS Winter 2021 is over. CERBERUS Esports, after dominating the league from the start, defeated GAM in the thrilling grand final series and became the best of Vietnam before 2022. Let’s have a look at the final series, and VCS Winter as a whole.
The league, other than its native streams, was presented in English by unofficial VCS community VCS English this year. Through their streams, we were able to follow this immense race for the championship. This was the last test before 2022 for VCS teams, and hopefully, they will be back on the international stage next year. CERBERUS showed that their aim is to represent Vietnam when they have the chance by winning VCS here.
The grand final of VCS Winter
After the regular season, only four teams were left for the playoffs: Burst The Sky, Luxury, GAM Esports and CERBERUS. During the semifinals, CES defeated LX 3-1, and GAM defeated SKY 3-0 to book their place at the grand finals. Later, Burst The Sky defeated Luxury 3-2 to claim the third place of the league.
The series started in favour of GAM Esports, after Vietnam’s iconic jungler Levi stole a Baron to get his team back in the game. Turning the game around, GAM ended it in 30 minutes with a score of 10-8. Find Levi’s steal below from VCS English’s tweet:
After losing their momentum in the first game, CERBERUS did not repeat the mistake for the second time. By showing a dominant gameplan with a fast pace, CERBERUS defeated GAM to tie the series, winning the second game in 27 minutes with 16-7.
However, it was time for GAM to shine in the late game once again. Although CERBERUS started the third game great once again, while leaving their Galio behind, GAM helped their Gwen and Kalista scale. In the meantime, they secured some drakes, which helped them get the Cloud Soul. Using these advantages, only one miscalculation from CES led to GAM winning team fights and getting both the Elder Drake and Baron Nashor, making it 2-1 in favor of GAM Esports.
It was time for CERBERUS to get themselves together, as they were ahead in all three games and managed to lose two of them. Through making decisions and playing team fights better, they were able to win game four. Although GAM played a better early game in the fifth game, CES proved they were simply the stronger team with the superior game plan, securing the championship.
Success of CERBERUS and the aftermath
Although they were here for the last three years, this was the best season of CERBERUS Esports, and it wasn’t just playoffs luck, they were the better team during the entirety of the season. With finishing the regular season 13-1 and although they lost some games, proving they are the better team during the playoffs, I think they are one of the championship contenders for the spring season too.
With their win, CES secured €15,501.28 in prize money, while their opponent in the grand final, GAM, took €7,750.64 home. In comparison, the last non-problematic VCS event, VCS Summer 2019 gave the same prize money, 400,000,000 Vietnamese Dong, which was equal to around €15,000 that time. It is good to see that VCS is still able to offer the same amount of prize for their teams after such a hard time.
According to Esports Charts, VCS Winter 2021 had a peak viewer count of 114,704, with that being the game between GAM Esports and CERBERUS in the grand finals. The first match between these two teams in the first week of regular season was the previous record with 103,873 peak viewers. The streams also averaged 34,120 viewers, which look really nice for a local competition held during the offseason.
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