Vitality cement historic 24th straight victory to reach Rivals final over Spirit

The ESL Grand Slam champions now hold the second-longest match winstreak in Counter-Strike history.

Vitality have extended their unbelievable winstreak to a historic 24 games and put themselves through to the grand final of BLAST Rivals Season 1 after a resounding 2-0 victory over Spirit (13-8 Mirage, 13-9 Nuke).

They surpass Liquid's 23-game winstreak from 2019 and now have the second-longest streak in Counter-Strike history, with only Ninjas in Pyjamas' unbeatable record above.

It is the fifth straight final for Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's men, who are no doubt establishing an era to be remembered with an utterly dominant start to 2025, and could well be the fifth trophy in a row as they will face Falcons in a rematch of the IEM Melbourne grand final.

"I don't know what's going on with this team since the beginning of the year, but I have insane players," a visibly happy apEX told the analyst desk after the game.

"We are working so well together, everyone is grinding, the job we're all doing is fucking good. Another final, fifth in a row, maybe another trophy. I'm actually sick today, and I'm pretty happy everyone stepped up."

Date	Matches
BLAST Rivals 2025 Season 1
04/05/2025	Falcons 16:00 Vitality	Match

Spirit head home after continuing to struggle apEX's side, losing for the third time this year after apEX's men dominated the Shanghai Major champions 3-0 at IEM Katowice and clinched a 2-1 victory at BLAST Open Lisbon.

Worringly, Spirit looked worse off this time out than in Lisbon, with Vitality's ability to shut down Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets's individual heroics on full display and the rest of Spirit's individuals unable to make up the deficit.

Mirage was a one-sided bloodbath courtesy of a nigh-impenetrable defense from Vitality, with Spirit walking away from the first half with a solitary round win and Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov finishing with a disastrous 0-12 K-D.

Insult to injury was added as two of Spirit's only opportunities to add to their tally ended in a 1v2 clutch from apEX and a quad kill by William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman to pull back a 2v5, the latter of which was the true morale breaker that let his team storm to an 11-1 lead.

Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool were key in that effort, posting 2.29 and 1.92 CT ratings, respectively, but Spirit turned the other cheek in the second half — thanks, in part, to two multi-kills from chopper and a clutch from Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev — and pushed toward a comeback.

An exceptional call by apEX put an end to those hopes, as after an AWP was spotted in Apartments, Vitality threw a fake on B to pull Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia away and used that to sneak up Connector. They hit map point from that and closed just two rounds later, stealing Spirit's pick away thanks to ZywOo and ropz doing all the work with two hero AKs.

An early back-and-forth, where Vitality lost an uncharacteristic round to pistols thanks to a triple from chopper, kept Spirit within touching distance of the lead at the start of Nuke, but Vitality soon prevailed in the force-buy war to jump out ahead, 6-2.

Some sloppy trading from apEX's side at Ramp and a failed Upper hit allowed Spirit to close the gap to two rounds at the break, but that gap was immediately extended again after Vitality won the second pistol, shot down Spirit's force-buy, and converted against the eco, 10-5.

Spirit slowly started to claw back again, much like on Mirage, although their wins did not inspire confidence — particularly after apEX almost won a nigh-impossible 1v4 clutch with a USP.

The economic and mental damage done by the French captain soon haunted Spirit, though, after mezii took matters into his own hands and aggressed into Lobby for a triple kill.

The Russian team fell apart after that, running time down in a failed Lower site hit to give up match point, and Vitality took full advantage of that to close out the game.