Spirit and Vitality ascend to the final - IEM Rio

Normality has resumed in Rio as the two best players in the world have reached the grand final in 2-0 fashion.

It was not donk who took over against Falcons for Spirit, though, it was instead magixx - of course. We should have known. In fairness, he has previous for big game performances. His Major final performance when Spirit won was incredible, and today he channeled that version of himself again.

He was absolutely superb on Dust 2 on the CT side, where maybe he's a little freed from calling, and turned what was an even game at the half into a pretty one-sided win. He won a huge clutch to stop Falcons getting any momentum going on their T side, and seemingly was just getting his kill - usually an important one - every round.

He was once more very solid on Mirage, but this time it was another under-appreciated player who took the limelight. zont1x racked up multikill after multikill to put Falcons to bed on what was a depressingly damp squib of a map from a team that had been so electrifying in the group stage.

Falcons were nowhere to be found, in truth, and Spirit waltzed straight into the final.

Vitality were made to scrap for a win against a FURIA team with the wind on their backs, but greatness prevailed under the bright lights.

FURIA flew out of the blocks on Overpass and straight into a 6-1 lead, but Vitality found joy on the B bombsite and inched their way slowly to a five round haul on the T side from that point, which is what makes them the best team of all time. Backs against the wall, raucous crowd against you, one of the hardest sides of CS in the current map pool against a very very good team, 6-1 down and you eke out five. Elite stuff.

Unfortunately for FURIA and the home crowd, such feats were out of their reach. Vitality won seven of the first eight rounds on the CT side to reach 12, and though FURIA had a burst of energy towards the end it was too little, too late.

Ancient was more back-and-forth, with teams winning rounds in pockets and each round feeling like a huge swing round. mezii was completely off the boil, and that's probably what let FURIA into the lead at 9-8 where it felt like they had a chance, but ZywOo was absolutely superhuman at times in this game.

Down the stretch, he turned a double entry from FURIA into a 3v2 for Vitality in lightning quick fashion, and followed it up with another multikill to drive a nail into FURIA's coffin.

FURIA put up a fight against the best team in the world - but Vitality don't lose very often for good reason.