Vitality earn Paris Major grand final berth over Apeks

Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, the two MVP frontrunners, will go head to head for a chance to lift the coveted Major trophy.

Vitality have punched their ticket to the BLAST.tv Paris Major grand final after besting Apeks in a two-map series, drawing first blood after a hard-fought Mirage (16-14) before wrapping things up on Vertigo (16-12).

Vitality now sit one best-of-three away from lifting the Major trophy on home soil, now needing to best GamerLegion on stage in front of the Accor Arena crowd in order to wrap up the storyline. The two teams will begin their grand final bout on Sunday at 17:00 .

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023
21/05/2023	GamerLegion 17:00 Vitality	Match

"It's incredible to be here [on stage]. I am really happy we delivered and reached the final of the French Major," Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire said in front of the adoring crowd, one which rarely gave the captain the room to speak because of their roars and cheers. "It means so much, I don't know how to describe it. The feeling I have is the best in my life."

The win notably marks a number of Vitality players' return to a Major grand final. Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif and Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen last reached the title decider of a Valve-sponsored event with Astralis back at the StarLadder Berlin Major, whilst apEX's drought dates back to DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015, which he ended up winning with Envy close to eight years ago.

Vitality enjoyed a strong start to Mirage, mostly thanks to a sublime performance from ZywOo, who was already up to 12 frags by round five. Apeks did mount a comeback of sorts midway through the half, cracking open the bombsites without much resistance and keeping the French sniper under wraps to trail by just one round at the break.

This hard-fought nature remained in place for the entirety of the second half, a series of high-impact clutches keeping Apeks firmly in the thick of the action. The European combine even managed to whittle the deficit down to just one round, but their defense crumbled in round 30 to allow Vitality to snatch victory just as overtime loomed.

Vertigo was another hotly-contested battleground, although it didn't feel like that to begin with. Vitality, spurred on by a strong showing from Magisk, blitzed their way to a 10-5 advantage at the side swap, with a blowout performance looking likely.

Alas, key clutches from Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski and Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson, who was the only Apeks player to end the map with a 1.00+ rating, kept his team in contention somewhat as they reduced the deficit down to sit one round behind their foes, 9-10. In the end, however, Vitality found the magic formula, as ZywOo came online and Magisk continued to have a standout game, allowing the Franco-Danish mix to post a 16-12 scoreline and join GamerLegion in the BLAST.tv Paris Major grand final.

The grand final between GamerLegion and Vitality offers a tantalizing duel between iM and ZywOo. The two players lead the tournament statistically, with the Romanian rifler on a 1.44 rating over 10 maps and the Frenchman on a 1.36 rating over eight maps, and are both in a the race for the Most Valuable Player (MVP) medal.

The two teams are yet to meet during their time in France, but whichever team's star can keep up their strong form will likely have the edge in the do-or-die title decider in Paris.