NIP edge past Vitality in two maps to qualify for BLAST Fall Final

The Swedish-majority side are through to the Royal Arena, while Vitality head to the Knockout Stage.

It's been easy sailing for Vitality so far in their BLAST Fall Group as the team has looked quite comfortable with Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan in tow, dispatching of Evil Geniuses and Complexity without any difficulty in their first two matches of the tournament. Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire even admitted earlier in the tournament that he was surprised at how well the team had been clicking already, but added the caveat that they had yet to play a top-10 team.

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Ninjas in Pyjamas may be just on the cusp of that, but they showed that Vitality have more to worry about than they first would have thought. The Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser-led side scored victory over the No. 2-ranked team in two maps, shutting down a red-hot performance from Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut to win Mirage 16-13, before barely edging out victory on Vitality's pick of Overpass, 16-14.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2023
21/07/2023	OG 17:30 BIG	Match
23/07/2023	Vitality 15:00 BIG	Match

"They played really well and did some mix-ups from what we saw," Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen said of Mirage after the game. "But also I think the communication today was not on point and we did some mistakes. ZywOo tried to save us multiple times and was close, but yeah... two bad starts on Mirage made it difficult for us to come back.

"[On Overpass] we were playing a bit too passive, not getting information, not trying to play on our strengths, not trying to get more picks. With them playing slow it was quite difficult because you get in that mix where you're afraid to make peeks because they're waiting for you, or saving utility for the right time, so that was unfortunate. Hopefully we'll bounce back."

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Ninjas in Pyjamas had just barely lost their opening series of the event to Complexity, but clawed back through the lower bracket by defeating Evil Geniuses and Complexity in a rematch. Overpass was an issue for hampus and company in both games versus Complexity, though, and as such Vitality picked it out to target NIP's weaknesses.

Things started to go wrong for the BLAST Paris Major champions before the series even reached their pick, however, with only ZywOo really showing up to the server for his team on Mirage. NIP took an initial lead on the map before heroics from the French AWPer closed the gap, but the rest of the team failed to show up around him. NIP had a resurgence in the second half thanks to a superlative showing from Daniil "⁠headtr1ck⁠" Valitov and strong fragging from Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner and Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin, securing the win 16-13 despite ZywOo finishing the map with 30 kills to his name — while his closest teammate sat at 15.

"We were a little bit scared honestly," Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke said regarding the Frenchman's superstar performance on the map. "You know ZywOo when he turns on, like he did in the P250 round, what can you do? He's just too good, props to him for being this strong, it's crazy."

k0nfig also touched on NIP's poor showing on Overpass on Tuesday and spoke about bouncing back against Vitality, something which they didn't look like they would do at the onset of the map. Sporadic CT rounds were all the team had to their name while apEX's men climbed to an 8-7 lead on the T side, and though NIP regained the lead off a pistol round win and subsequent conversions, it looked like Vitality would force a third map once the gun rounds arrived.

Brollan and REZ combined with strong individual rounds to get their team back into the game, and a few rounds later, a game-altering walk-up in bathrooms from k0nfig and double kill from Brollan completely shifted the momentum. Vitality's economy was in a rough spot as Ninjas in Pyjamas continued to find ways to crack into bombsites, allowing them to narrowly edge out victory, 16-14.

"Me and REZ, we talked for 30 minutes [about what to do on Overpass], "k0nfig explained of the team's bounce back in performance on the map. "So we just made some setups, talked about what we can do, and then Brollan just dominated on A which made it a lot easier of course. We got dominated yesterday on it so we just had to change things up, and I think we managed to do that. It's insane, it feels great."

When asked whether he felt whether Vitality just couldn't find an answer to the changes NIP made, k0nfig said no. "No, I think they did, but I also think that we had some really good plays and some really good rounds that we threw in. I think we caught them a little off-guard by how aggro we were and the things that we did."