Vitality outlast ENCE to claim Gamers8 title

Despite being dominated on the opening map, Vitality recovered admirably to march to the trophy.

Vitality have claimed their third trophy in the last few months, defeating ENCE 2-1 to secure the Gamers8 title. They had to battle through adversity to do so, recovering from a woeful opening map of Anubis (7-16) to win Mirage (16-12) and Nuke (16-9).

ENCE weren’t able to maintain the level as a team that they started the series with, although Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García did his utmost to haul his team to victory. Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut was by far the key man for Vitality; he woke up on the second map and continued to frag hard as the series wore on.

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire was clear about what this victory means when speaking in an interview on broadcast: "The last five tournaments we made four finals, we won three of them, so if we are not the best team in the world, I don’t know who is."

Anubis kicked off this series, and ENCE romped to a thoroughly convincing victory on their map pick. They were better than Vitality in every department, both as a team and as individuals, with every single member of the team producing a highlight-worth moment. Vitality had much work to do ahead of the second map.

Mirage served as Vitality’s choice, and they started so much better than they did on Anubis. Still, it was a back-and-forth battle, with late-round scenarios and force-buys deciding things more often than not. Vitality had a little more firepower in clutches and half-buy rounds, and it granted them a 9-6 half victory.

After a lengthy technical pause the second-half commenced, and Vitality comfortably controlled things on their CT side. ZywOo and Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan produced powerful multi-kills to keep things ticking over, and Vitality eventually took a 16-12 win.

Nuke served as the decider, and Vitality got off to a hot start on their T side, racking up a 5-0 lead before ENCE could respond. Once they did get guns up, however, ENCE were the better side, with SunPayus and Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz shining bright. Their poor start meant they only took an 8-7 lead heading into the side swap.

Vitality were utterly dominant once they got onto the CT side of Nuke, with Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi and ZywOo shutting down any plays ENCE tried their hand at. SunPayus did find a great multi-kill to earn ENCE a round, but it was all they could muster as Vitality marched to a convincing 16-9 victory to seal the series.