The second in line: Vitality, the Ubiquitous

Team Vitality are always, always in with a shout.

They could be in the worst form of their life (they’re not, but go with us here), and you’d still not be comfortable writing them off.

apEX’s boys were by an incredible margin the best team in the world at the start of the year for around six months, and genuinely looked like they might never lose a series again at one point. That’s only mildly hyperbolic; NIP were starting to get a little hot under the collar looking at their 87-0 record with trepidation.

They have since cooled off - hence they’re not the #1 contender - but they are still more than capable of taking home back-to-back Majors and taking their haul to three. apEX has proven to be a top tier IGL, arguably one of the best of all time and inarguably one of the most successful, and ZywOo is absolutely inevitable. If he doesn’t show up in map one, he will win the game in map three.

It’s not just them either; mezii is probably the most overqualified support player in the world, flameZ is one of the best in his aggressive roles, and ropz has now been part of two dominant teams that added him and went into the stratosphere.

If you want to win trophies, you sign ropz. Simple as that.

What are their credentials?

Eight trophies this year, including the most recent Major. It’s pretty impossible to argue against them as the best team of 2025, and they already have history of winning Majors. They’re basically never bad, either, so when the pressure is one and other top teams crumble, it’s incredibly unlikely you’ll see Vitality crumble.

They simply have the highest floor in the world, and possibly the highest ceiling too.

They’re really good.

Man for man

What makes Vitality so impervious at their peak is that they have both an incredible amount of firepower, man for man, and a rock-solid system that gets the best out of them - but that only works because they are all selfless.

ZywOo, despite being in the conversation for best player in the world, remains a humble and self-sufficient player who doesn’t require nor demand special protection. He gets support, obviously, but he’s not coddled and played around to the extent of a lot of other teams’ main stars. He’s obviously a phenomenal AWPer, top class rifler, world class clutcher and everything else you can say about him, but he does it without any massive ego or huge resource requirement.

It’s what makes the rest of the players also able to contribute massively, like mezii. mezii is essentially an anchor, support, hard entry type player, but he still puts up numbers that some of your favourite star players dream of from time to time. He’s an exceptionally versatile player who can and will do anything you need of him to an elite level.

flameZ on the other hand, has quite a particular role and that is being a genuine lunatic. flameZ is the aggro piece on this team who often works in tandem with mezii, but is tasked with opening up sites and making space in contested parts of the map for his superstar closers to win the round. There’s pretty much only one person in the world better at it than him, and that’s the best player in the world.

It’s hard to say ropz goes ‘under the radar’ on this team, because of course he doesn’t - but the fact that he’s just sort of left to his own devices and isn’t the main focal point of this team makes him extraordinarily terrifying. You think you have a chance when you kill ZywOo, then look up and see ropz is still alive in the late round, and your head drops. ropz is probably the best late round rifler in the world, and one of the best of all time.

That leaves apEX, who has gone from madman entry fragger to a much more passive role as an entry fragger.

He’s still mad though.

He’s not the best player in the world, but he doesn’t need to be, and he still has his moments. He’s not a total liability by any means, he’s just… clearly the worst player on this team.

But then most people would be.

Why mightn’t they win?

Their form is not amazing in terms of converting runs into trophies, which is hard to believe given they won so many trophies in a row. They won ESL Pro League, but lost to FURIA in Chengdu, G2 in London, Falcons in Hong Kong and The MongolZ in EWC and at BLAST Bounty in the top four.

They are an incredible team who are basically never bad, but they don’t hit a 10/10 as often as they did earlier in the year, and there’s often one other team in peak form who outdoes them. It’s been FURIA of late, but the fact they’ve lost to MongolZ and G2 in big games is a cause for concern.

Their Train is a real problem to the point they’ve been experimenting with playing Ancient, their usual permaban. If they don’t sort Train out, they’re in real trouble - if a big team can play either Ancient or Train every time, they’re starting most series 0-1 down.

As good as mezii is, his form as of late has been more up and down than before. He’s a victim of the fact that support players get screwed over when their team loses, but he hasn’t looked quite as sharp as he did during the Vitality mini-era.

What are their actual chances of winning?

FURIA should be the favourites, but Vitality have as good a shot as anyone else past that. They’re very, very good, and no individual team below the first seed is actually better than them. If Vitality can refind their cold blooded killer mode on stage, it’s over.

If FURIA have something like a 30% chance, Vita are hovering around 20%. They have multiple win-cons, history of winning, a solid dependable system and time to refine their map pool before stage three has started.

It feels like it’s FURIA’s Major, but there’s a good chance we sit here in a few weeks and think about how obvious it was that Vitality were going to win.

And if they do… apEX is joining some esteemed company on four Majors.