Vitality lock in EPL quarter-final berth

The IEM Cologne champions extended their series win streak to 11 after moving past Liquid in the final group stage match.

Vitality are through to the quarter-finals of ESL Pro League Season 20 after reverse-sweeping Liquid 2-1 (10-13 Anubis, 13-5 Nuke, 13-9 Dust2) in Group D's upper bracket final.

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's side didn't waver in the match despite losing the opening map and extended their unbeaten series streak to 11 ahead of the playoffs, thanks in part to a particularly potent series from Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi.

The Israeli rifler had struggled to match his 2023 level before the tournament break but has had a resurgence for Vitality in recent events, enabled by conscious changes made within the team as highlighted by apEX on broadcast after the match.

Clip: apEX speaks on Spinx's form and the struggle of lurkers

"Lotan, for the first six months [of 2024], had some struggles," the French captain said. "He didn't play at his 2023 level. We also tried all together to work for him, to help him, because as we all saw, ropz had a downfall, a lot of lurkers had a downfall.

"So we tried to work on that in the second part of the season with the staff, myself, and him of course, and we can see that it's paying off and it's working for him. We changed things a bit and we asked him to change a bit of his playstyle in some ways, to be a bit more aggressive, and it's paying off."

Spinx had a slow start to the series as Liquid came into their Anubis pick flawlessly executing a game plan to bully Spinx and William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman's B Site and Dark defenses, going up 5-1 off the back of it and extending that edge to 7-3 after Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken and Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage turned a 2v4.

Vitality recovered toward the end of the half and started to claw back with Spinx coming alive on the T side, but Liquid made full use of their lead and managed to close the map out.

Clip: Twistzz and jks turn a 2v4

Nuke kicked off with a wild back-and-forth, a force-buy war of attrition eventually won by Vitality in round 10 after they punished Liquid a third time for leaving a gap open to the lower bombsite. That broke Liquid and quickly led to a blowout for Vitality, with the Cologne champions going on a 9-1 run to close out the map in dominant fashion.

Dust2 was also competitive as Liquid drummed up an early 5-2 lead, but Spinx and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut turned the tide for Vitality again to bag a lead by the break. Liquid had a few chances to steal the game in the second half, including with a round stolen by two USP kills from Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic, but multi-kills from apEX's Galil and late-round closes from Spinx let Vitality close out.