IEM Cologne 2024Vitality roar past SAW to reach Cologne final
A close start on Nuke soon segued into a stomp for Vitality in the semi-final match.
The first semi-final of IEM Cologne 2024 has drawn to a close, seeing Vitality claim their place in the final over Portuguese underdogs SAW after a confident 2-0 victory.
With this win, Vitality have secured their third final in 2024, offering an important opportunity considering the fact that the European side is one of the few top sides to be without a trophy throughout the year so far.
Conversely for SAW, this result puts an end to the best run that Christopher "MUTiRiS" Fernandes's men have had in a Big Event, one that saw them move past top squads G2 and FaZe while also securing their first appearance in front of a crowd of Cologne's magnitude.
"We saw what happened to FaZe yesterday, and we did not underestimate [SAW]," shared Vitality captain Dan "apEX" Madesclaire following the team's semi-final victory.
"They have had such a strong run, but we focused on ourselves, and it paid off."
The series kicked off on SAW's pick of Nuke, where the Portuguese squad managed to stand toe-to-toe with their opponent throughout much of the first half, taking an early lead on the offense.
After squandering a round by losing to pistols, SAW were soon beaten back further by a clutch from apEX, allowing Vitality to tie things up and shift the momentum in their favor.
Clip: apEX ties up Nuke by clutching versus ewjerkz
After turning a 3-5 deficit into a 7-5 half, Vitality continued to turn up the heat on SAW on the offense, allowing just one round to slip away as they stole away Nuke 13-6.
By the time Vitality's pick of Dust2 began, the international side was fully into the swing of things, stamping out a deflated SAW throughout the T-side to bag a 10-2 half before closing out the map not long after with a 13-5 scoreline.
  Vitality |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 - 14 | +7.11% | 100.9 | 86.5% | 1.77 | |
| 35 - 18 | +5.89% | 91.9 | 81.1% | 1.53 | |
| 28 - 19 | +4.80% | 72.8 | 91.9% | 1.33 | |
| 28 - 20 | -1.68% | 72.6 | 73.0% | 1.30 | |
| 23 - 21 | +0.39% | 80.5 | 78.4% | 1.21 |
  SAW |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 - 29 | -3.40% | 65.9 | 73.0% | 0.89 | |
| 22 - 27 | +1.49% | 60.3 | 59.5% | 0.89 | |
| 17 - 30 | -3.19% | 62.7 | 59.5% | 0.77 | |
| 20 - 29 | -4.01% | 63.5 | 51.4% | 0.76 | |
| 10 - 35 | -7.39% | 41.5 | 43.2% | 0.40 |
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa
Janusz 'Snax' Pogorzelski
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Christopher 'MUTiRiS' Fernandes
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