Team Vitality are in the top four of ESL Pro League. Two matches to go.
The second day of the quarterfinals matches saw G2 esports take on NAVI while Vitality were up against Outsiders. The two teams emerged victorious in their respective matches to set up a clash between titans. The star-studded Vitality will go up against the favorites of the tournament, G2 esports in the knockout semifinals match. Only one will come out with a win, and that team is most likely to win the tournament.
Vitality take the series 2-0, but it wasn't easy
Zywoo is back on the top as the French player continues to dominate in the Vitality roster. Despite some really close maps in the matches yesterday, Zywoo’s performance was particularly impressive.
He ended the series with 56 kills, an 88.3 ADR. For contrast, the second highest frags on any other player in the server was Qikert at 44 kills. His own teammate Magisk was not far behind Qikert at 43 kills, however, Zywoo was clearly in a different class of his own.
Vitality were off to a strong start on their CT side on Mirage with a 10-5 lead. The early lead helped them in the end, where they won the map 16-13. Zywoo ended the map with a 1.30 rating and 26 kills.
Vitality had a similarly strong start on the T side of Dust 2, going up 9-4. However, Outsiders managed to win the last two rounds in the first half to close the half with a 9-6 score lead for Vitality. Ultimately, Dust 2 went to overtime, and Vitality managed to close out the map with a 19-17 score. They won the series 2-0, booking their slot in the semifinals of ESL Pro League Season 16.
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A win, but not perfect
Despite the 2-0 scoreline, Vitality’s performance was not really perfect. The team had to endure multiple small errors and despite Zywoo’s performance, the rest of the team didn’t always hit their shots. In an interview with HLTV after the match, Magisk had praise for Vitality’s IGL, praising his shot-calling in the matches today.
He [ApeX] has a lot of ideas and a lot of things he wants to do, so I don't want to interfere with him too much especially if he's having a really good game in calling, and I think he did call really well today. Some of the rounds we lost ended up in some individual mistakes, and obviously Dan [apEX], he can't outcall that, it's not possible. Sometimes mistakes happen and you can do the perfect call, but if people are just not hitting their shots it's obviously not going to work. If we struggle a bit, if he doesn't really know what to call and stuff like that, that's when I'll try my best to come with input and try and help the team as much as possible.
If Vitality are to put up a strong showing in the remaining matches at ESL Pro League, they will need to step up their game. Their next opponents are G2 esports, who took down NAVI in the quarterfinals.
Speaking about the current state of Counter-Strike, Magisk thought aloud about the extremely competitive nature of the scene right now. He gave an example of FaZe Clan, a team that is one win away from winning the Intel Grand Slam, but they are not ‘easily’ the best team in the world today.
“One of the most important things in Counter-Strike is confidence, and even back in Astralis when we won everything, we had so much confidence, even when it was 3-12. Having this is probably one of the most important things in Counter-Strike.”
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