Virtus.pro win Roobet Cup 2023 over Monte

Jame's side take home the title in a tournament run that included wins over FURIA, Spirit, and OG.

Virtus.pro are the champions of Roobet Cup 2023, earning the lion's share of the $250,000 pirze pool after they secured a 2-1 victory over Monte in the grand final.

The Russian team kicked off the title-deciding series with a 13-10 win on their Overpass pick, but couldn't close it out in two after a lackluster effort from them on Anubis and strong showing from Monte forced a Mirage decider, where VP ultimately ran away with the game.

Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali's men posted wins over four top-30 ranked teams during their tournament campaign, a showing which grants them their first title victory since the return of David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan in August.

Date	Matches
Roobet Cup 2023
25/10/2023	Virtus.pro Finished 2:1 Spirit	Match
27/10/2023	Movistar Riders Finished 0:2 Virtus.pro	Match
31/10/2023	Virtus.pro Finished 2:0 OG	Match
01/11/2023	FURIA Finished 1:2 Virtus.pro	Match
02/11/2023	Monte Finished 1:2 Virtus.pro	Match

VP has a chance to add another title to that tally as they are also in the playoffs of Thunderpick World Championship 2023, where they will take on HEROIC in their quarter-final match. A win in that game could well set up a rematch of this grand final if Monte also moves past Spirit in their own quarter-final.

Should that unfold, Monte will need to show a better face than they did in this series, where they often lost out in opening duels on both Overpass and Mirage. The latter map, in particular, bore a stark contrast from how the start of the series unfolded as Monte simply couldn't get anything going after the opening stages.

A fervent battle for control unfolded at the start of Overpass, a pistol win for Monte not being enough to grant them an early lead as force-buy wars ensued between the teams.

A triple kill round from n0rb3r7 on round four marked an end to the back-and-forth after VP converted the following two rounds, and from there Evgenii "⁠FL1T⁠" Lebedev stamped his authority on the server to help his team establish a 7-5 lead at the end of their T side effort.

VP extended that edge after the halftime break, but couldn't close out the map immediately. Monte strung together three offensive rounds and brought the deficit down to a minimum, but again ended up on the losing end of a back-and-forth exchange of rounds as Virtus.pro attained match point and closed out their pick, 13-10.

Monte answered back on Anubis, although their situation looked dire at the start of the map. They only narrowly snagged the first two rounds before being put on the back foot by Jame's side, who won five rounds on the trot in an imperious attacking effort on the favored side of the map.

Alexander "⁠br0⁠" Bro and Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev came up clutch for their team to get back into the running, stalling out VP's executes for three rounds in a row and managing to even the score at 6-6 at halftime. Once on the attack themselves, Monte assumed full control, only losing four rounds (including the pistol and conversion) before closing out their pick, 13-10.

Mirage was where the series fell flat, however, a completely uninspired attacking effort from Monte allowing Virtus.pro to completely run away with the game. Monte grabbed an early string of rounds off a pistol victory at the start of the map, going up 4-1, but capitulated entirely from that point.

FL1T and Jame were particularly impactful in shutting down Monte's T side efforts as VP won all of the remaining rounds in the first half, leading 8-4, before a 1v4 clutch from Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov in the second pistol round sealed Monte's fate and allowed VP to rapidly close out the game, 13-4.