Vitality beat GamerLegion to win the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023

The French CS:GO team Vitality smashed GamerLegion 2-0 in the grand finals to win the Paris Major in front of the home crowd.

After winning the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 in front of its home fans, Vitality has established its domination in the CS:GO landscape. With their star Awper Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and rifler Lotan “Spinx” Giladi racking up kills from every nook and cranny of the maps, Vitality posted a consistent performance and remained undefeated throughout the French Major. The duo gave the club a tonne of firepower, sufficient to effectively breach any resistance they faced from an opponent. 

Starting their journey from the Legends stage, Vitality crushed ENCE, Monte, and G2 in three straight matches to advance to the playoffs with a 3-0 record. After an undefeated run, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and company stomped Into The Breach and Apeks in the playoffs without dropping a single map to book a place in the Grand finals.

On the other side, Gamer Legion had a shaky start to the Major, falling to a 0-2 record after dropping two straight matches against Complexity Gaming and MongolZ. The team, however, made a phenomenal comeback and made quick work of  MOUZ, Monte, and FORZE to advance to the next stage of the event. 

After narrowly avoiding an early exit, the squad once again found themselves vulnerable, this time against Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev’s Natus Vincere in the opening match of the Legends stage. Despite all odds, the underdogs still managed to soak in all pressure and overcome  9INE, Fnatic, and Apeks in their subsequent matches to secure a berth in the playoffs. 

Gamer Legion’s biggest challenge, however, came in the second round of playoffs, where the team faced Heroic, the second-ranked CS:GO team in the world. Despite dropping the opening round against the Danish team, the underdogs rallied and secured the next two maps to book the championship bout against Vitality.

Team Vitality vs Gamer Legion – Match Summary

The final best-of-three series kicked off on Overpass with Gamer Legion securing the pistol round. Vitality immediately responded with a strong five-round streak of their own, captured on the back of their fragging prowess and map control. The team maintained its blitz throughout the game, convincingly punching a 16-6 victory and gaining a strong foothold in the championship game.

Things heated up a bit on the second map, Nuke, where GamerLegion put on a much more competitive performance and cruised a 6-4 advantage. GamerLegion extended their lead to 10-5 before halftime, but Vitality was not willing to give up the map. In the second half, Vitality fought their way back and eventually tied the score at 13-13 with the help of the French Awper Awper ZywOo and Israeli rifler Spinx.

After that, Vitality won three straight games to win the second map 16-13 and become the last CS:GO Major champions. In addition, Vitality takes home $500,000 and secures coveted spots at IEM Cologne 2023 and BLAST Premier: World Final 2023.

Header: BLAST