Vitality's era is well and truly crumbling - BLAST Open Porto round-up

Oh dear, Team Vitality.

We know there's mitigating circumstances, but this is getting pretty tough to watch. Inner Circle played well and deserved their win, but that's kind of the problem, isn't it?

When ZywOo is at the bottom of the scoreboard, and apEX is at the top, you've got problems. Especially when you're losing to an underdog. cptkurtka, a rdy.gg favourite (not necessarily for any data-driven reason, just because we like his vibe), put the hurt on Vitality on both maps to take down the greatest team of all time.

He won a 1v2 retake on Cache just as things were starting to swing in Vitality's favour that turned the half from a 3-6 to even at the half.

headtr1ck too had a superb map on Cache, and it's not often he'll get to say this, as he out-AWPed ZywOo to help Inner Circle complete an unlikely, and famous, 2-0.

Legacy continue to impress as they pulled off a big win over FUT just days after the latter had made a grand final.

One could argue there was some lethargy stemming from playing so soon after, and the travel involved, but this was another solid performance from Legacy and another scalp for their collection.

They almost threw away a huge lead on Dust 2, as cmtry and dziugsss manufactured a 2v4 out of nowhere to keep Legacy off of map point and help FUT to a string of rounds that nearly turned the tide - but a massive round from latto closed it out as things got close.

try had an off-map on Dust 2, but he'll be forgiven as it was his AWP that powered Legacy to a first map win, dropping 26 - 16 of which came from the big green gun - with some massive CT side holds in particular.

This was an enthralling game, and selfishly we wish there was a third map to watch, but Legacy will be pleased to close it out and take another big name.

Falcons executed a miraculous comeback from 9-2 down on Dust 2 thanks to the magic of their Russian child duo.

Lynn Vision had already won a half 10-2 on Ancient and nearly thrown it away, but this time from 9-2 up they failed to collect another round as karrigan called rings around them to spare Falcons' blushes.

m0NESY - bar one or two uncharacteristic mechanical failures in the first half of Dust 2 - was superb, but it was the the much-maligned TeSeS who has gone on to the next level under his compatriot karrigan. He had one of those games - the type he used to have on HEROIC - where he completely took over Inferno and seemed unkillable to put Falcons up in the series with Ancient beckoning.

But Lynn Vision proved why they're at these events with a stellar CT side to restrict Falcons to just two on Ancient, and despite some wobbles of their own converted the map to push onto Dust 2, where they flew out of the blocks again.

Their old demons came back to haunt them, though, as Falcons showed their class when it really mattered. You have to kill karrigan when he's down, or you'll regret it forever.

9z fell flat as MOUZ ran riot on Cache and Nuke for a very clean 2-0.

xelex has quickly adapted to tier one and now looks like a more-than-capable player at this level, and he and Spinx dovetailed for 62 kills in 38 rounds to sink an unimpressive 9z. torzsi dropped 36 all on his own too - PR was the only MOUZ player to not completely outfrag every 9z player, and he was joint with dgt, the topfragger.

luchov was the talk of the town last season, but he was invisible in this one. It was a desperately disappointing performance from a team we fell in love with.

We expect much more - but this was a business-like performance from a MOUZ team who are going from strength to strength.