Vitality dominate MOUZ in the Spodek to claim EPL S24 trophy
Goodbye Vitality era, hello new Vitality era.
We're starting to feel a little sorry for MOUZ, who no matter how big they get, there always seems to be a bigger fish. Or, well, mouse. They were superb at this event and in many other situations would have walked away deserved winners, but instead found themselves on the end of an 0-3 to the greatest team of all time.
For many other players, this would have been a career defining performance, but for ZywOo this was just another Sunday in front of the PC. He put up a 64-33 scoreline in one of the most outrageous grand final performances you'll ever see today - just seriously special stuff in a big game.
One could talk about MOUZ' failings - how xelex had a rare off-game where his mechanics seemed to fail him for once, how torzsi was second best far too often, how their T side of Inferno was a bit of a disaster - but to do so belies the overarching point; that Vitality are, at their best, unbeatable. Quite simply. No team has ever been better, and it's foolish to believe a team of mortals like MOUZ could best them on their game.
We began on Cache, where ZywOo dragged Vitality out of a sticky start to somehow win the first half. His 3k in a 3v5 got Vitality just their second in round seven, which he immediately followed up with a crucial opening kill onto his opposition AWPer in the following round to get Vitality into the game.
flameZ and apEX teamed up to open the bombsites twice to close the half, and after MOUZ had flown out of the blocks to go 5-1 up, it had been all one-way traffic. MOUZ once more won the pistol and converted all the way up to eight, but then Vitality won every round to close out Cache quite simply. ZywOo, who else, got back-to-back picks in the first gun rounds of the half.
He did require some help from mezii to put Vitality on 12, with the Englishmen trading him for a crucial 2v1 win on PR, but the winning kill came from ZywOo in a 1v1 of his own to close the map.
Vitality were in total control on Inferno throughout, and ZywOo set the tone early with a triple on the pistol, but it was flameZ who has massive impact on the defensive side to put Vitality in such a commanding position.
He had two separate 3ks and a 4k in a pretty ridiculous half of Counter-Strike as MOUZ struggled to get anything going with any level of consistency. They failed to win two rounds in a row until Vitality were on 11, and quite frankly, we don't blame them. Some of the multikills flameZ was pulling off were mind-blowing.
This map was over at half time - even if 9-3 isn't that game-over worthy, it is against a Vitality team in this kind of nick, and so it proved.
MOUZ won a lot of pistols in this series, and won both on Dust 2 which proved important as they forced OT in clearly the closest map of the series.
MOUZ will feel they should have won this map, as they hit 12 first and were up by three when they did it, but it's just not that easy to put Vitality away. xertioN's wild 4k tipped the scales in their balance to 10, and some pretty simple but effective team CS got them to 12, but a mezii triple turned a 4v5 into a won round for Vitality late on, before ropz collected three of a kind to tie the game at 12-12.
And then ZywOo decided it was game.
He found an opener as well as both in a 2v2, a triple to close the CT side and then two more in a 3v3 to end the series outright in just the four rounds of OT, as Vitality blew MOUZ away with seven in a row from 9-12 down.
MOUZ have something of a reputation in these big games, but we really can't blame them today. Vitality are just that good.
Sometimes, you have to just sit back and watch greatness.
This is a historically great team.
Vitality win ESL Pro League Season 24 - and it won't be their last trophy, either.
