Vitality qualify for ESL One Cologne 2019

10-5-2019 21:38

In the upper-bracket final of the ESL One Cologne Closed Qualifier Vitality overcame HEROIC 2-1 (12-16 Mirage, 16-8 Nuke, 16-14 Overpass), earning a spot at the event.

Vitality and HEROIC reached the upper-bracket final of the ESL One Cologne 2019 Europe Closed Qualifier, facing off in a BO3 to for a spot at the event in Germany. The French side overcame ALTERNATE aTTaX and AVANGAR earlier in the qualifier, while HEROIC took down HellRaisers and North.

Mirage kicked off the series, with HEROIC grabbing the control early on the Terrorist side, going 6-2 up. Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt's side replied with a four-round streak to equalize the scoreline, but the Danes got back on track swiftly, finishing the half with a 9-6 lead and continuing on after the switch, reaching map point. Down 15-6, Vitality fought back, but HEROIC managed to close it out in the end, 16-12.

apEX and co. have secured an ESL One Cologne spot

Vitality's pick followed, Nuke, but HEROIC started off well once again, this time 5-1 up on the CT side. With Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut leading the charge, Vitality dropped only two more rounds before the end of the half, and put up an impressive CT side defense to finish the map quickly, 16-8.

The decider, Overpass, was a back-and-forth affair at the start, Vitality kicked it off 3-0 before HEROIC equalized it at 3-3 after Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer and Adam "⁠friberg⁠" Friberg combined for all five frags in round four. The French were then back on track, taking a 8-4 lead, with the only round going the way of the Danes being a 1v2 clutch by Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund.

Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin was leading the fragging for Vitality as they secured a 10-5 half-time score, but a 2v2 in the pistol which was resolved in HEROIC's favor kept the Danes in play. They managed to narrow the deficit down to just one round, 11-10, when ZywOo managed another clutch, this time a 1v1. Vitality powered to match point from there, but HEROIC clung on, and in the had a great situation in the last round of the game. However, Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy, on 1 HP, rose to the occasion and sealed the deal with a hat trick.

ESL One Cologne 2019 Europe Closed QualifierBest of 3

Vitality

Matchpage

10th May 2019

HEROIC

Mirage

Nuke

Overpass

Vitality	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut ZywOo	68 - 50	+18	78.5	75.6%	1.24
Nathan 'NBK-' Schmitt NBK-	57 - 59	-2	83.9	72.0%	1.09
Alex 'ALEX' McMeekin ALEX	69 - 61	+8	82.0	67.1%	1.09
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire apEX	48 - 63	-15	75.9	70.7%	0.96
Cédric 'RpK' Guipouy RpK	38 - 48	-10	53.8	67.1%	0.82

HEROIC	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer blameF	59 - 49	+10	82.9	70.7%	1.16
Niels Christian 'NaToSaphiX' Sillassen NaToSaphiX	57 - 52	+5	71.3	73.2%	1.11
Patrick 'es3tag' Hansen es3tag	56 - 60	-4	74.9	73.2%	1.04
Adam 'friberg' Friberg friberg	53 - 55	-2	72.8	67.1%	1.03
Martin 'stavn' Lund stavn	55 - 64	-9	79.9	68.3%	1.01

The team list for ESL One Cologne is now:

Astralis

ENCE

fnatic

Natus Vincere

Renegades

NRG

Vitality

NA Qualifier

BIG

FaZe

MIBR

Ninjas in Pyjamas

MOUZ

Invite slot

EU Qualifier #2

Asia Qualifier

Gg! Great team, can't wait to see them play in cologne!

2019-05-10 21:38

5 replies

1 reply

2019-05-10 21:40

Wow, Liquid is really skipping Cologne over Blast LA l0l

2019-05-10 21:39

2019-05-10 21:51

to see how they lose againts mouesports :)

2019-05-10 21:58

ez for zywoo

they're looking bad

Ez for le tank

-10 XD

2019-05-12 11:58

Shit team

6 replies

Cry is free

So is your mother

2019-05-10 21:46

2019-05-10 22:12

Cryland

2019-05-11 00:42

2 replies

Your team is literally one player, id shut up if I was you. Lol without Zyw0o your team would be absolute dog shit.

2019-05-12 00:35

Zywoo is not everything, just look at the stats of the last matches Crycrycry

2019-05-12 00:58

Eat that ESL

+99

2019-05-10 22:47

Watching vitality play is like watching one surgeon work while 4 others watch him. Y’all play some shit cs

2019-05-12 00:40

Bro NBK 2 majors NA CS 1 major

2019-05-13 00:23

Eat what? Your team literally being made of ONE good player. Congrats your team still sucks!

2019-05-12 00:39

Congratulation on being the stupidest hltv user

2019-05-12 11:50

First NBK crying because not invited and now barely qualified...

33 replies

? your point?

2019-05-10 21:41

28 replies

NBK was crying because he considered that they deserve an invite, but now they struggled to qualify

2019-05-10 21:42

26 replies

And they qualified. So your point?

2019-05-10 21:43

21 replies

My point is that NBK was just wrong. If they struggle to qualify how do they deserve an invite? Mouz would qualify way faster if Vitality would get invited instead of them

2019-05-10 21:45

19 replies

hockey

They only lost 1 map.

9 replies

But the last one was 16-14 after a 10-5 half on t side

2019-05-10 21:49

8 replies

And?

2019-05-10 22:02

7 replies

Which means they struggled to close out the games

2019-05-10 22:03

And your point about mouz is pure speculation. They lost a bo3 to vitality. You have no evidence that they would have easily made it though the qualifer, you're literally just guessing. If they can make it thru the qualifier in the most difficult region they would have equally deserved an invite.

2019-05-10 22:09

Mouz lost a bo3 to Vitality when they started playing together. Every fresh team struggles at the beggining. I can agree with that guessing, but you need to remember that everyone has his own opinion. I just think that mouz would do a bit better than Vitality, but that's still just my own opinion. Now let's just wait for Cologne to see who deserved the invite more (If they're even gonna play against eachother)

2019-05-10 22:15

4 replies

Yeah everyone has their own opinion and in HLTV and ESL rankings Vitality was higher ranked. Mouz was invited purely for viewership purposes. Not saying they dont have potential but the goal of inviting them was not to invite the team they thought was better.

2019-05-10 22:27

3 replies

I can agree with the viewership, but maybe ESL just thought they're gonna get better before Cologne and invited them thinking they're gonna do well. I honestly have nothing against the French scene. I never hated any French team (Even supported G2 in 2016) but NBK's tweet was just pathetic.

2019-05-10 22:32

Lol? Pointing out that they're higher ranked in the rankings that ESL uses to invite teams is not pathetic. Its informative.

2019-05-10 22:41

twitter.com/NBK/status/11239884003260416.. For me it looks like typical cry because not getting invited

2019-05-10 22:45

6-1 : that's their record for this qualifier.

2019-05-10 21:48

Issou they struggled they are back from a 1 week vacation

struggle ? They didn't loose a match and were the first team to qualify .. That's pure hate

2019-05-10 22:00

#49

#52 - you didn't answer

2019-05-10 22:01

If you can't just do ctrl + f here you go: Still vs alternate it went to ot after 13-2 half for Vitality and the last map was 16-14 after 10-5 on t side

They literally weren't trying vs attax on CT on either map. First map zywoo uses a nova til he kills the enemy AWPer round 6 and picks up an AWP. They were attempting to practice T sides because they have been their weaker side. On t they stomped both maps.

2019-05-10 22:11

I had read that comment, I meant that it did not answer

2019-05-11 10:12

The point is your roster has one decent player that literally does everything and if your not a vitality fan then it really really sucks to watch. Vitality don’t play good cs... ONE PLAYER EVERY SINGLE TIME. Without Zyw0o vitality would be a tier 5 team. NBK actually cried because he didn’t get an invite what a joke.

2019-05-12 00:43

They only lost 1 map lmao

2019-05-10 21:54

Still vs alternate it went to ot after 13-2 half for Vitality and the last map was 16-14 after 10-5 on t side

2019-05-10 21:57

Your team is pathetic and sad as only one player does anything. Watching vitality is like watching 5 surgeons and only one of them knows what the fuck they’re doing 😂😂😂

2019-05-12 00:45

Multiple major winners don’t know what they do nice one burger

2019-05-12 11:34

That's a good question lol

2019-05-10 21:47

qualify from upper bracket final = barely qualified? toilet cleaner logic

2019-05-10 21:56

Nah dude he is right. They easily qualified, and even had they lost that one, they would have clapped Avangar and still qualified.

2019-05-11 00:18

Deserved

fuck

NBK stopped crying, finally

Bunch of french dirty frogs go die axaaxaxaxa baguette fuckers XD jk i dont bet love you vitality

Na i aint a bettard bro. Just trolling

2019-05-10 22:06

That last round tho

Haha yeah, that was good fun

2019-05-10 21:44

Zinedine Zywoo Nbking Rapex Le tank alex just alex ez4vita

alex just alex Man you got me so much man . ROFL

But you r right they got potential

Alex the uk hope

2019-05-10 21:53

he's got a lot better in the team to be fair

2019-05-10 22:37

Yes he played very well this week

2019-05-10 23:03

2019-05-10 23:11

GJ ! But Apex looked very poor on this qualification :/

This could be the reason why they had a close game on Mirage and Overpass. He will surely look better for the next events.

He switched positions on the T side, might explain why he wasn’t in top form!

2019-05-10 23:01

It was especially is CT side so far i remember. 5-15 start on mirage

2019-05-10 23:26

So far so good in terms of teams

Ez for ZywOo

stacked event, too bad liquid too scared to play

WHERE ARE U HATERS ? Mouz prepare ur ass

Few comment below, already resuckin Vitality

2019-05-10 23:07

French scene is such a mess. The best french player by far, Zywoo, plays in "the second french team". Which is in the reality the first because of him.

Uhh... Vitality has better structure, consistency, map pool, and tactics than G2. Literally the only thing G2 has more of is individual skill.

2019-05-10 22:08

Hi think is the opposite. The new G2 have better tactics but there are not amways the best in individial skill. But Vita is smeep far too much on individual skill (Zywoo<3) and mess on tactics and that s something they work a lot actually

2019-05-10 23:48

They're purely individual skill. You mean to tell me that Alex and rpk > lucky and jackz individually? Not even close. Alex and rpk are good role players that help with tactical depth. G2 dont even have a real support player how can they be better tactically? If g2 had better tactics theyd be a better team because man for man they are better. Shox>NBK Jackz<apex Lucky>>rpk Amanek>alex Kennys>zywoo awp Zywoo rifle>KennyS. Actually be logical. If G2 had better tactics and a better map pool theyd beat G2 and be a better team because they have more skill overall and be better at all aspects of the game. You can also tell which team has more structure by seeing how consistent they are. G2 have a higher peak (due to times when all their individual players show up) but also lose to weaker teams more often because sometimes they arent on point and they dont have the same tactics to fall back on like Vitality do. Not to mention the fact that you have shox, a star player IGLing. Star player IGLs are normally much looser because they want to still be able to use their individual skill primarily. Meanwhile NBK has to use tactics and instill teamplay in order to make the stars of his team zywoo and apex successful. G2 has good teamplay and they play off each other decently well, but in terms of map pool and depth of tactics Vitality are superior, just look how detailed their executes on D2 and overpass are, and that's what allows them to be more successful than G2.

2019-05-11 00:03