Team Spirit has taken their place as favorites for the Esports World Cup Counter-Strike 2 tournament after a 2-1 victory over Vitality in the quarter-finals in Paris.
The victory was the first time Team Spirit had defeated Team Vitality since Robin ‘ropz’ Kool’s arrival signified the coming of the Vitality era.
Vitality suffer painful defeat in Paris
For Vitality, the defeat is a painful one in multiple ways. The defeat came in front of a hugely partisan crowd as the Paris crowd cheered on the home organization and players.
The fans and the org were hoping for Vitality to play once again at the Accor Arena, where the org won its first Major at the BLAST.tv Paris 2023 Major.
Additionally, the tournament is the last time that we will see this historic roster for some time, as Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire and William ‘mezii’ Merriman prepare to welcome children into the world.
Instead, Vitality will play at least BLAST Porto and PGL Masters Bucharest with Justinas ‘jL’ Lekavičius, bringing into question the future of the Vitality era.
After Vitality’s defeat at the IEM Cologne 2026 Major, and the upcoming absence of some of its pieces, the stranglehold the roster had had on CS’s pro scene seems more in doubt than ever.
How Spirit took Vitality down
Spirit started strongly on Anubis, winning the all-important CT-side pistol to create a basis for success, closing out six rounds in the back-and-forth half to give themselves an advantageous position on the T-sided map.
That T-side could have gone much smoother, however, as Vitality won clutch after clutch with mezii shining for Vitality in 1vX scenarios, resulting in Spirit losing a 11-6 lead.
A rapturous Paris crowd seemed assured that Vitality were about to complete a classic comeback, but Andrey ‘tn1R’ Tatarinovich then came in clutch with huge impact to close out the map 13-11.
Nuke followed, with Vitality looking much more comfortable early on, racing to a 7-1 lead on the unfavored T side.
However, Vitality uncharacteristically let the game slip away from a 12-8 lead, but managed to capture the game in overtime, 16.14
Mirage was all about Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets, as Spirit matches so often are. The Russian rifling prodigy dropped 20 kills on the CT-side alone to resist Vitality’s attacks.
Converting seven multikills, Vitality fell to the fate that so many opponents fell to versus donk, but that Vitality had not felt since before the addition of ropz to the lineup.
A 9-3 lead emerged, with Spirit only needing a few rounds to get over the line, and they did so without struggle or regard for the hometown fans, winning 13-3 to knock Vitality out of the tournament.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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