Vitality beat ITB to secure Major semi-final spot

Vitality became the second semi-finalists of the Paris Major.

Vitality defeated Into the Breach to qualify for the organization's first Major semi-final at the BLAST.tv Paris Major. The favorites won the series in two maps but were still made to work for it, as two close battles on Vertigo (16-11) and Anubis (16-12) were enough for them to go through to the last four.

"It's amazing to play here, to feel the crowd," said Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen, who joined James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks for a quick post-match interview. "We played a little scared in the beginning, overall I'm still happy we won."

"I know we didn't put up the results at the beginning and started with a new approach, hopefully we will show we can play really good here after learning something from Rio," said the record breaker about their aims for the rest of the tournament.

Vitality now await the winner of the Liquid vs. Apeks game in the semi-finals, where Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and company will once again assume the role of favorites.

While this is the end of the road for Into the Breach, the British squad will no doubt be happy with their performance. They made the Major top-eight as a team that no one expected much from, with some of their scalps along the way consisting of FaZe, ENCE, and fnatic.

Another encouraging quality of the team were the performances of Cai "⁠CYPHER⁠" Watson, who turned many heads during the French event and averaged a 1.11 throughout the tournament — as well as seemingly avoiding the crowd jitters, given he posted a 1.16 rating in the loss against Vitality.

The series between the squads started on Vertigo and Into the Breach came out of the gates swinging, racing to a 9-6 lead. A 1vs3 clutch by who else than CYPHER netted them their tenth, but the Brits weren't able to keep up their momentum and eventually dropped the map 11-16 after a sturdy offensive half by Vitality.

Into the Breach's CT side woes continued on Anubis as they posted six in the first half, a total that fell just short of allowing them to come back on the offense. ZywOo was particularly impactful on the second map, as the "Chosen one" put up a 1.70 rating to end the Into the Breach Major fairytale.