Vitality breeze past Sprout to lock Cologne semi-final spot

The Frenchmen put on a dominant showing, stopping Sprout's upset run in the quarter-finals.

In the opening playoffs series, the German team was unable to keep up with their surprising group stage performance that saw them catch their compatriots BIG as well as OG off-guard, falling to a dominant Vitality side after two quick maps.

Vertigo initially looked like it might become a close affair when Sprout took the fight to Vitality in the opening stages of the first half, winning a second-round forcebuy and a couple of early gunrounds with good setups on each bombsite, but a halfbuy win from the Frenchmen ended up turning the map on its head.

From there on, Vitality looked insurmountable while the young duo of Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut spearheaded the offense, with each playing a big part in two separate 3v5 turns, and the favorites went on to dominate Sprout to secure the opener at 16-6.

The beginning of Mirage was just more of the same from Vitality. Only two out of the first ten rounds went the way of the German-Polish team, who struggled to find gaps in the defense until Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter found a key kill on the defuser in a 1v3 clutch, allowing Sprout to reach five rounds before Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy stepped up to the plate with two multikills to end the half.

After the sides switched with Vitality on double digits, Denis "⁠denis⁠" Howell & co. closed the gap to three thanks to a flawless defense in the pistol round, but that was all they could do. Once the French side racked up the economy to buy up, they were back in the driving seat and cruised to victory without too much drama, giving up just one more round along the way while ZywOo ran rampant.