Best Five of BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023

Vitality dominate our all-star team of the event after breaking FaZe's streak in the grand final.

Vitality, and MVP Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, are back. CS2 began without 2023's Major winners having much of a say after a last-placed exit at IEM Sydney and no tournaments for them since, but that narrative has already been shattered.

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's squad, with a new player in William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman and (sort of) new coach in Rémy "⁠XTQZZZ⁠" Quoniam, won all four of their series and ended FaZe's 13-game LAN winning streak in a mature grand final showing.

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The event also saw the resurgence of Cloud9 and Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov under Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov, more strong form from Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski, and another grand-final appearance from FaZe. Read on to find out who made it into our hotly contested Best Five.

Anchor: Supportive players on CT Side. Players get points for each spot; e.g. B Mirage is 0 points, A Connector is 10, and other spots scale between that. Anchors must average below 3 points overall.
AWPer: Players who record more than 20% of their kills with snipers.
Closer: Lurkers on T side. Points are awarded like for Anchor, but on T spots. Full lurk spots are 0 points, roaming pack spots are 10. Players' averages must be below five to qualify for the Closer category
IGL: In-game leaders and captains. The primary strategic caller.
Opener: The inverse of Closer: Pack riflers on T side. Their average must exceed five points.

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Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan's addition to Vitality was a ruthless one, removing Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen just a few months after victory at the Paris Major.

But, the 20-year-old is already starting to justify that decision. He has brought considerable firepower to Vitality as an anchor on CT and entry on T, and BLAST Fall Final was his best event yet.

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apEX: "Replacing Magisk is not going to happen, so the newcomers have to step up"

"Replacing Magisk, the experience, the help he did in the big games, all those kinds of things are not going to happen, so some newcomers have to step up," apEX told us pre-tournament.

And, with mezii still adapting, it was on flameZ's shoulders that this burden was placed — and met. Nowhere was this more obvious than on Vertigo in the grand final, as flameZ lay waste to FaZe and posted a 2.25 rating, his career-best.

flameZ does have a few active positions, with mezii as the side's primary anchor, but he still qualifies for this award and nobody else who did came close.

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ZywOo got a 1.12 rating in his CS2 debut at IEM Sydney but you'd have been forgiven for thinking it was a 0.80, such was the criticism.

Phenoms like the Woo are held to higher standards than mere mortals, and it is telling that a 1.12 rating — a good stat for regular players — was his lowest since the IEM Rio Major.

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ZywOo: "I started to have a bit of an ego to show people what I'm capable of"

But ZywOo's supremacy was re-asserted in Copenhagen, up to a 1.35 rating and clinching his 17th career MVP.

"I knew people would start to speak about my level in the new game, and I think I started to have a bit of ego to show them what I'm capable of," he told us. "It was just the beginning and I just wanted to show them that even if we fail one tournament, it doesn't matter."

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CS2, thus far, has been the Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool show out of the game's best closers. But, like ZywOo, Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi has thrown his hat back into the ring at Fall Final.

Ending the event on a 1.26 rating, Spinx was at his multi-fragging best and had a solid final (1.26 rating, 3rd on Vitality) and was the player of the match in Vitality's map three comeback against Cloud9 on Inferno with a 1.50 rating in the 13-11 thriller.

Over the course of his time in Vitality, Spinx has evolved his game into a pure lurker, a fully fledged closer, and one of the very best players of the post-COVID generation.

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apEX has earned this one. It is the third trophy-winning Vitality lineup of the year, and it came on the back of a 58% win-rate on T sides (1st) and the best 5v4 win-rate (78.3%); both signifiers of a team in full flow.

His T sides were at their explosive best, accelerating into site pops and outcalling Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen in the final with a nine-round T half on Vertigo and eight on Nuke as Vitality came alive in crunch time.

The bounce back from IEM Sydney has been stark, even with mezii struggling individually on debut. "At IEM Sydney we lost everything, we lost Magisk, we lost our coach, and our performance coach," apEX said post-match. "We used to go with nine people to tournaments and we were six, we had only our assistant coach who got sick, the mood, the war happening... It was a pretty shit mood in the team and it was really weird."

One event later, Vitality are galvanized. And, so much of that credit should be sent in their captain's direction.

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The fifth and final spot, however, will not go to Vitality. flameZ was a contender, but the Opener category swiftly became a remarkably close two-man shootout between EliGE and electroNic.

Both players ended the event above a 1.30 rating in showings that elevated their teams to semi-finals. In map three deciders, both averaged a 1.35 rating. In their teams' map wins, EliGE posted a 1.49 rating and electroNic a 1.50. The results were even against similarly ranked opposition.

What ultimately separated the two was stage performance: EliGE ended his semi-final with a 1.42 rating, compared to electroNic's 1.13.

Both riflers ended CS:GO below the level they showed before COVID, when the duo were two of the very best riflers in the world. But in CS2, with EliGE in Complexity and electroNic relieved of IGL duties in Cloud9, they have shown that they have plenty more to give.

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Vitality's return to form was the main storyline of Fall Final, and that has been represented here. flameZ is rewarded for stepping up as the side's third star in Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif's absence, and the core trio were back to their near peerless best.

Only EliGE breaks in, a testament to the level that he has shown in CS2, being the highest-rated player on LAN in the new game that has posted more than 20 maps.

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ZywOo earns BLAST Fall Final MVP