Editorial: Do Vitality really want to win IEM Dallas?

It appears to be a straightforward question on the surface, but there's more than meets the eye at IEM Dallas.

The curse of the silver platter

I have a soft spot for IEM Dallas. It's unassuming, takes place at a rather small venue, the calendar dates aren't particularly special, and yet it somehow always delivers. Not in the way other tournaments, like a Major or one of its bigger IEM brothers in Cologne and Katowice, deliver, with roaring crowds and the best teams competing on the biggest stages. But it does deliver in its own way if you just dig deep enough, and perhaps give in to the supernatural just a little bit. In the words of Roald Dahl, "Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

For starters, Dallas holds a special place in Counter-Strike history. Hall of Famers Emil "⁠HeatoN⁠" Christensen and Tommy "⁠Potti⁠" Ingemarsson won the first Counter-Strike Major there, CPL Winter 2001, back when Ninjas in Pyjamas were good. It was the home of the ESEA Global Finals, and later on, FACEIT held its ECS finals in Arlington, right next door. Not far, in Frisco, Complexity had their headquarters at The Star when they were under Dallas Cowboys ownership.

In 2019, DreamHack Masters Dallas became the precursor of the current IEM Dallas. A bit of NA history was made there, too, when Liquid won the second event of their Intel Grand Slam Season 2 run and overtook Astralis on the HLTV World Ranking to knock the Danes off the perch for the first time in over a year.

The modest tournament, housed at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, made its return after the COVID pandemic in 2022, but something changed, and over a year of online CS brought with it a new world order. IEM Dallas became its unwhitting conduit.

The lovable Gambit Youngsters, who rose to prominence by grinding infinitely during the online era, got signed by Cloud9 in a bizarre move that put a Russian team in an American organization. After failing to win on LAN the same way they did online and crashing out of the PGL Antwerp Major in 12-14th place, their big moment finally came. Where? You guessed it, at IEM Dallas.

Cloud9 lost only one series on their way to the title, leaving behind the likes of FaZe, Liquid, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and beating ENCE, who made a surprise run to the grand final with Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski standing in, in the grand final

But what many saw as the proverbial uncorking that would let the nectar of victory flow quickly turned sour. The sweet Gambit boys we watched grow during the online era were hardening under the spotlight, but not fast enough. By the end of the year, Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin was gone, and less than a year later, the core was no more. They never won together again.

Well, at least Jack had his moment

Okay, that's a bit spooky, but surely there were no shenanigans in 2023, right? Wrong. That was the year of ENCE, a team that combined the pristine Mediterranean warmth of Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García, Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz, and Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković with the cool Nordic leadership of Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha and Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer, along with prime Paweł "⁠dycha⁠" Dycha to boot.

After fighting to break into the top echelons of the game, ENCE finally got their trophy in Dallas, walking over FaZe, Astralis, and MOUZ in the process. But like with the 2022 champions, that was all of the silverware they would win together. Three second-place finishes followed at ESL Challenger Katowice, IEM Cologne, and Gamers8 before the team dissolved at the end of the year. None of those players have since won any trophies in any of their new teams — although some will surely smile when they check their bank account after a time in Falcons.

A PayPal wallet is born

So, 2024. G2 won IEM Dallas, and they went on to win more tournaments that year. What's up? Well, the power of Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač and Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov can't be easily shaken. But let's break it down. The win was extraordinary because of its rarity in this day and age. A downtrodden former flagbearer of North American Counter-Strike, Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip, comes out of retirement to take a struggling but starpowered G2 to victory in his home country. Netflix couldn't have written a better script.

The catch? The seed of despair was planted in Texas and the pre-IEM Dallas G2 was no more. Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković played one more event and were taken out of the lineup for Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa and Snax. That team won the BLAST Premier Fall Final and BLAST Premier World Final with the newcomers, but by the end of the year star player NiKo was gone, and soon thereafter m0NESY joined him. Where? In Falcons.

"Seriously, do we really need HooXi?" - G2 at IEM Dallas 2024, probably

Let's not forget, though, that IEM Dallas 2024 wasn't only about the champions despite that incredible narrative. 9z mashed their way through the group stage and made it all the way form left field straight into the semis, beating MOUZ, Liquid, and Vitality in the group stage upper bracket. What next? They failed to replicate their IEM Dallas run at other Big Events and tried to move to Europe, but quickly sank in the quicksand of tier-three online play before hightailing it back to South America. Roster changes followed as star player Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia moved to paiN after more than half a decade on the team. Coincidence?

One could almost believe that Falcons used IEM Dallas as a scouting ground for recruitment. After all, slick runs as freely in Texas as it does in Arabia and five players from the last two IEM Dallas championship teams have gone on to find homes in the Saudi organization. Sure, the first go around was so-so, but now they have the star duo of NiKo and m0NESY, two of the top four players in the world, and that was really all coach Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen needed to finally believe in the project.

In this IEM Dallas 2025 prophecy, where GamerLegion have been cast aside to not get in the way of a good story, only a preternatural bromance of this magnitude, in which a young Russian AWPer soars among the Falcons with his older mentor, can break Vitality's incredible winning streak and shatter the nearly unstoppable momentum built over the course of 28 matches and six events, dating all the way back to IEM Katowice in February.

To win, or not to win? That is the question

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire and his men will surely be inclined to fight back valiantly, so far removed from defeat that they can barely fathom such a concept, but they should first weigh the consequences of beating Falcons, an act that could put them at grave risk. Remember, no team that has won IEM Dallas has gone on to win with that same roster again, and the desired BLAST.tv Austin Major is right around the corner.

In theory, they could beat Falcons and then go on to lose the final to one of Aurora, The MongolZ, or MOUZ, but let's be real, that wouldn't happen — even in Dallas. Or would it?