Smooth sailing continues for ropz in Vitality with Bounty berth

Vitality remain untested with their new recruit despite a Train pick from Virtus.pro.

Vitality's imperious CT sides since signing Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool continued as they swept past Virtus.pro for a Bounty Finals slot.

VP aimed to disrupt the new-look Vitality with a Train pick but were stumped as a smooth Vitality ran up a 9-3 CT half.

There were some questions around Vitality's offence after a 10-2 lead turned into 12-11 against Metizport on Mirage in round one, and they were not fully answered as that 9-3 lead on Train turned from 11-3 into 11-11 with Evgenii "⁠FL1T⁠" Lebedev picking up clutch after clutch.

But Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire will be reassured by an assured terrorist side on Inferno, winning the first five rounds of the second half to lead 12-5 before closing the map out 13-6.

"It was stressful," apEX said pre-game about the Metizport game. "One player, but we changed a lot of things and it's not the easiest."

On Inferno that adaptation seemed an easy one, with ropz taking up Apartments duty with aplomb.

The Estonian recruit also showed some good signs on Train, where he played the Inner bomb-site on CT and T side.

"Robin likes to have moves," apEX continued. "He doesn't have the second voice on the team but he has a lot of plays that help the team succeed."

That was obvious on Train too, where ropz added some dynamic Halls pushes with fancy utility to the B bombsite defence. "We wanted to be ready, we had a lot of theorycrafting with ropz [on Train]," apEX added. "We all know he's a nerd, he had a lot going on in that sense."

ropz's ability to play anchor roles sets him out from Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, and gives more room for Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan and mezii to take more space on CT side. The Brit was the big benefactor today, able to take up A Rotation duty on Inferno to lead the CT side in fragging count.

"As soon as ropz joined the team we could feel the chemistry," mezii told the stream. "He fits really well in the server and outside the server. You always have the honeymoon phase but it feels really different at the moment, everyone's on the same page."

There was also the stable and reliable Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut factor, who ended the online portion of Bounty on a 1.64 rating after four maps.

That was too much to handle for a Virtus.pro that is still getting to grips with a new captain and plenty of role changes to make the Timur "⁠FL4MUS⁠" Marev-David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan swap make sense.

Top of new IGL Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov's in-tray will be getting FL1T back to his best, and his aforementioned Train clutches were proof of his quality even if Vitality's dominance was rarely questioned as they ran out 2-0 winners.