Vitality edge past Cloud9 to make grand final in Royal Arena

mezii will play his first grand final for Vitality on Sunday.

Vitality have booked a spot in the championship decider of BLAST Premier Fall Final after emerging on top of an embattled 2-1 affair against Cloud9 in the semi-final.

The teams traded wins on each other's map picks, Vitality sneaking through a 16-13 win on Mirage and Cloud9 claiming Nuke 13-9, with the Inferno decider going the distance before the European side clinched a 13-11 win to take the series.

Thanks to the result, William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman will get to play a grand final in his debut event for Vitality, with the team set to face the winner of FaZe vs. Complexity on Sunday.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023
25/11/2023	FaZe 19:55 Complexity	Match
26/11/2023	Vitality 17:00 FaZe	Match

Continued excellence from Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut proved key in keeping Vitality in contention throughout the series, but the team has Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi to thank for taking them over the line in the hard-fought Inferno decider.

They struggled to find an answer to Cloud9's relentless CT aggression for a while in the second half, and multi-kill rounds from the Israeli rifler proved key in getting them back in the running to stop the game from getting away.

"We were just trying to find new things to do [on Inferno]," ZywOo said in a post-match interview on stage. "After 11-10 or something like this, our coach just said, 'Do not give up on finding our gap, to find our thing to win the game,' and that's why we didn't give up. We had a good mood overall inside the game, and that's why we managed to win this game.

"I really enjoy CS2," he continued when asked about his form in the game. "The AWP is not the same as CS:GO, we need to find a new mechanic with this weapon, but I feel whenever you find new things with the AWP, it's so fun to play with it. I love CS2, I love this game."

There was no need to wait for a highlight when the first map of the series kicked off — Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov immediately delivered the best one of the event so far, single-handedly dismantling Vitality with a 1v5 pistol clutch to grant Cloud9 control and an early 3-0 lead.

Quad kill holds on the A bombsite from Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire quickly flipped the script, however, with Vitality winning seven rounds in a row to edge ahead at halftime. The European combine extended that edge to 9-5 after converting the second pistol, but Cloud9 slowly chipped away at the deficit courtesy of multi-kills from Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov's AWP.

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The Russian's consistency on the Big Green waned toward the latter portion of the half, with some missed shots allowing Vitality a window back into the map. The teams battled into overtime, and those extra rounds gave enough time for ZywOo to come alive and be the force his team needed to clinch victory, 16-13.

Nuke unfolded in a similar fashion, with Cloud9 emerging on top of an early battle to lead 5-3. Consistent entry kills from Vitality let them gain the upper hand with three rounds on the trot, but they quickly ended up on the back foot as excellent calling and great timing from Boombl4 allowed Cloud9 to swiftly hit double digits.

An attempt to claw back from Vitality served only to make the scoreline look more respectable as an Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov 1v2 ultimately set Cloud9 on map point, with the team closing it out immediately after to force an Inferno decider.

A quad kill from ZywOo helped Vitality start the deciding map in control, and that edge persisted throughout the first half. Cloud9 were on the attack, but turned the tides in the second half as their CT aggression throttled Vitality's game plan round after round.

It looked like the Russian team would storm their way to victory off that aggression, but a pivotal double kill from mezii turned an unfavorable 2v3 situation into a won round for Vitality. That round crushed Cloud9's economy and put apEX's men in the driver's seat, and they capitalized on that momentum to narrowly clinch victory, 13-11, and make the grand final.