[VCS] Secrets will be kept Secret

Nguyen Anh Thang
5 min readMar 17, 2020

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TS DNK (Source: VETV Facebook)

During the 2020 VCS off-season, an interesting rumor came out of nowhere. A big team from Europe would be participating in the tiny VCS league. Who would’ve thought that a team from Europe would actually participate in the VCS? Nobody did! It makes the arrival the more special as it is. With everyone’s excitement on their tip of their chairs, the Lowkey Esports team rebranded as Team Secret in week three of the 2020 Spring Split VCS.

Goodbye Lowkey Esports, and hello Team Secret, meet the VCS!

The transition between Lowkey Esports and Team Secret

On the 13th of February, the team officially entered the League of Legends scene in Vietnam by acquiring Lowkey Esports VCS slot. The previous team (Lowkey Esports) had huge debts in several other esports games, including; Rocket League, PUBG and Splatoon. In order to overcome their huge debts, the organization sold many different esports slots in order to fulfill the payments that were required.

It wasn’t long before the rumors started to cycle around the League of Legends team of Lowkey Esports, and when the VCS league started, most of the people thought that the deal had been blown off. However, the deal was complete after all and Team Secret was officially in the VCS. With their first games winning against EVOS Esports 2–1 and losing to GAM Esports 0–2, the team finishes off their first week with a solid 1–1 score line.

Team Secrets strengths and weaknesses

If you are just following League of Legends, or an casual Team Secret fan it can be very hard to explain this team in a nutshell. So what can be said about Team Secret? Well, firstly their team is made out of experienced players that have been playing in the VCS for a decent amount of time. Not only that, but they also played with each other for a very long time which is a strength of itself. Many teams in the VCS tend to switch players from every split.

The second thing that can be noticed about the European team, is that their drafting (pick and ban phase) is stronger than other VCS teams. Nixwater and other staff members have done a tremendous job at analyzing other picks through the world and are always on top of new meta picks that other teams haven’t done before in the VCS.

One of the weaknesses that you could fault Team Secret for is their lack of consistency. Whereas they win against the top dogs such as Team Flash, they faulter against the likes of Dashing Buffalo and CERBERUS Esports. It can be noteworthy that their consistency could haunt them in the future.

Meet Team Secret!

In my opinion, their playstyle is super entertaining to watch. Through several off-meta picks and fast-paced gameplay, the team is a juggernaut to be reckon with. The main point of attention is none other than their jungler DNK, who leads in his total team damage percentage (17.7%). His aggression sets the tone for the whole team, and it feels like he is the leader of the wolf pack with the calls that his team makes.

In the middle lane we have Artifact. With aggressive picks such as Tristana, Lucian and Cassiopeia in the midlane, there is no stopping the action. Sometimes it could lead to over-aggression which tends to happen from time to time, resulting into silly deaths. More often than not, aggression has been rewarded towards their favor with a lot of wins and Artifact has been a vocal point in most of their wins.

The last player that I’m going specifically mention is Celebrity. The botlaner has the long standing reputation of a veteran in the league and has been playing in the league since its existence. Known as the man that gets penta-kills almost every split, Celebrity has always been consistent and never unreliable for his team.

Team Secret on media day (Source Team Secret Instagram)

With three forward players, we also have the pillars that defend the three players. Hani (top) and Venus (support) are the ones make sure that the team can always move forward, and are often the ones sacrificing pressure, (in game) experience and CS (creep score).

What are their play-offs chances?

As of right now, their play-off chances are looking super bright. With a score of 6–4 in the regular split, the team is set to make play-offs in the spring split of 2020. If the team makes play-offs, the team could face tough opponents such as GAM Esports and Team Flash. We will have to see week by week on how their form shows premises for future matches. For now it is still a job to maintain focus and qualify for the play-offs.

Why you should root for Team Secret in the VCS!

The main selling point of Team Secret is that they are European. If you are European and are watching the VCS, well congratulations you have now an European team to support!

Team Secret celebrating DNK’s birthday (Source: Team Secret Twitter)

Another thing to mention is that their social-content is top notch. With weekly VCS vlogs (included subtitles), social media posts and even celebrating DNK’s birthday, the team has an incredible presence for the VCS and Team Secret itself. The team is one of the few teams that are super accessible for people outside of Vietnam, which is really awesome.

Will you root for Team Secret? Watch the next VCS match!

So you want to watch the next VCS match? Join us on the live broadcast on either the official Vietnamese broadcast or the English broadcast! Starting next Friday on 11AM CET, the first match that will be played is going to be Team Secret versus. EVOS Esports.

You can also join our VCS English Discord to discuss even more about VCS.

I hope you had a wonderful read about Secrets will be kept Secret, and on every Tuesday I will post an new article which features various things about the VCS as well. So stay tuned!

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Nguyen Anh Thang

I write articles about League of Legends, specific about the VCS and LJL! My twitter for more updates: https://twitter.com/Ichishikii