Vitality win BLAST Premier World Final

Vitality won the grand final comprehensively as FaZe never managed to get into the game.

Vitality have once again gotten the best of FaZe, this time to claim the BLAST Premier World Final trophy in Abu Dhabi. The two teams have met six times in 2023, now as the top two teams in the world, and Vitality have come out on top on five of those occasions.

The final bout played out on Inferno (13-5) and Nuke (13-7), and it marked the second final in a row that the Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire-led squad defeated CS2's early dominant side.

The series started out 3-3 on Inferno, but Vitality quickly shifted momentum in their favor on the map's defending side and went up 8-4 at the half.

Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut showed why he's the player to watch now, even when in the server with Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool, and hit a 1.59 Rating on the map after a four-kill round to put FaZe in the ground 13-5.

"apEX is the best in-game leader in the world, no contest at all," Rémy "⁠XTQZZZ⁠" Quoniam said after the match, and no wonder. Vitality played two great attacking sides in the series. After a 7-5 lead on the CT side of Nuke, the Bees went on to win six out of eight rounds on the attack to make this a sweeping victory.

ZywOo was once again the highest-rated player on the server by the 20th round, when the map and series was put to rest 13-7, with a 1.79 Rating and multiple highlights, including the 1vs2 triple below.

This victory, Vitality's second in a row after the BLAST Fall Final, marks the end of the season. The silly season has long been ongoing and is still in flux ahead of the winter break, for the circuit will kick back off in a flurry after the holidays with the qualifiers for the first CS2 Major in Copenhagen.

The BLAST World Final standings are:

1. Vitality - $500,000
2. FaZe - $250,000
3-4. Natus Vincere - $85,000
3-4. MOUZ - $85,000
5-6. G2 - $25,000
5-6. Cloud9 - $25,000
7-8. HEROIC -$15,000
7-8. ENCE - $15,000