Vitality set for gauntlet run if they want to continue trophy haul - IEM Rio Playoffs Preview

This is the best chance we've got at Vitality not winning a trophy.

They finally seem beatable, and ZywOo has been off his game (relatively), and we've got all of the top six in the playoffs. If Vitality are going to lose, it's going to be here, it feels like.

Falcons, with what is supposed to be a dead team, have toppled the giants in the group stage and put themselves straight into the semi-final, where Spirit or MOUZ will rise to face them.

m0NESY has been absolutely sensational so far this event, and looks once more like a top three player in the world. We haven't consistently seen this version of m0NESY this year, but hopefully this is the start of him peaking into the Major. Between NiKo and kyousuke, they've got more than enough rifle firepower to back him up, and Falcons weirdly seem like they might be the favourite - if only because they're the only team to ever beat Vitality.

Who shall face them in the semi-finals, though? MOUZ seem back to their group-stage-stomping best, while Team Spirit have been typically baffling. They lost a map to RED Canids, but were pretty dominant against a G2 team who had been in pretty good nick until then. The positive news for them is that tN1R has looked far more like the player they thought they were getting at this event, and that makes them a three-pronged-trident rather than a weird tuning fork type deal.

It's hard to make a case for MOUZ in a playoff game over this version of Spirit, given they haven't been that impressive individually and killing donk/tN1R/sh1ro requires you to be in a very shoot-y mood, generally.

Falcons kicked the guts out of Spirit in the group stage, so it does seem like either way we're likely to see Falcons in the final. Which is good news for us, and potentially bad news for Vitality.

Vitality are up against a plucky NAVI side who are very hard to beat, but generally lack the outright stopping power to beat a team like Vitality. makazze is a fantastic player, and iM has been terrific too, but it's just hard to imagine them being able to beat out the best team of all time. Even with ZywOo's relative quietness, ropz and mezii have been in their grand final form even earlier than usual, and we suspect ZywOo and flameZ might be fit and firing come tomorrow.

FURIA await them, who do have history of beating Vitality. They have wins over both NAVI and MOUZ already, which gives us a lot of faith that they might be So Back, and molodoy remains potentially the most electrifying player to watch in the entire world.

Vitality have to beat NAVI, FURIA and probably Falcons to win Rio - and if they do that, they deserve their title as the best team of all time.