The EVPs and All Stars of IEM Dallas

ZywOo's sixth consecutive MVP has him well in the lead in the early Player of the Year race going into the Austin Major.

We're running out of superlatives for Vitality, who have won 30 matches and six trophies in a row.

IEM Dallas got close at points — 13-11 deciders were required against Falcons and The MongolZ to keep that streak going — but even Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and company's B-game was enough to leave with a sixth gold medal.

ZywOo is now up to 26 MVPs (19 at Big Events) and has matched his 2020 record of six MVPs in one year in just five months.

There is less pressure on the Frenchman to carry than in past Vitality rosters, but when he is required he can always push the team over the edge — shown by his 1.39 playoff rating so far this year.

The pack are running out of time to catch him already.

Read more

ZywOo: "We didn't play our A-game for all the tournament"

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Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás's 1.50-rated group stage was a thing of beauty, dominating Falcons on Dust2 and Mirage to take MOUZ straight to the semi-finals.

He then confirmed his strong EVP with a Player of the Map showing against The MongolZ on Nuke, which meant he went into the final as favorite for the MVP.

A combination of his underperformance knocked him down to second in our list, but the top EVP is still a deserved accolade for the Hungarian — especially using Round Swing, which has him at +2.06% in playoffs to show his impact was higher than his 1.01 rating suggests.

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Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi was torzsi's sidekick in groups, at a 1.45 rating and 108 ADRW before we moved to the arena.

The highlight was a 2.10-rated battering of Liquid on Train, but he only had one map below 1.00 all tournament and was right there with torzsi in round wins (1.04 KPRW, 103.1 ADRW).

He had a better final than his AWPing teammate, but it was more of a high floor case in playoffs rather than map-winning peaks which kept him below in the final list.

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Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov got most of his raw numbers against weaker opposition, going above 2.00 against NRG and HEROIC in groups, but earned his EVP in a solid quarter-final versus GamerLegion and with a POTM against tournament winners Vitality.

A 1.03 rating against top 5 teams (and only 1.10 when you add GL), however, tells a tale of his overall event which added an asterisk to his figures and kept him towards the bottom of the list.

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Usukhbayar "⁠910⁠" Banzragch led The MongolZ to their fourth Big Event semi-final with 1.08 kills per round win, a 1.21 rating against top 10 teams, and only one map (out of 11) below a 1.10 rating.

It's his first ever EVP — though he does have a bronze MVP from YaLLa Compass in 2024 — in by far his best-ever Big Event.

His playoff impact was quite low, however, with a middling +0.59% round swing over four maps. That, and the fact that Azbayar "⁠Senzu⁠" Munkhbold was the driving force against Aurora, meant he could not go any higher.

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The best players of IEM Dallas 2025, in order

Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut
Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás
Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi
Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov
Usukhbayar "⁠910⁠" Banzragch

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Honorable mentions

Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan was Vitality's second-best player in round wins and map wins, but narrowly missed out on an EVP because of a fairly low arena ceiling.

William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman had a better playoffs (+1.74% round swing) but also lacked in peaks, while Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool did most of his best work early.

Senzu, finally, has a statement arena series to his name (39-23 K-D, 86 ADR, 1.50 rating) after the quarter-final against Aurora, but hurt his case against MOUZ.

Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş, Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın, and Samet "⁠jottAAA⁠" Köklü have good raw figures but Aurora had a fairly easy run (no top5 teams, 4/12 maps vs top 10) and none of the three did enough for an award. XANTARES was closest, but didn't confirm it in playoffs and has an inflated quarter-final rating thanks to a cosmetic comeback on map two.

Nikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" Martynenko also didn't face the trickiest opposition but stood out in G2's 7-8th finish with +2.71% round swing and 1.12 kills per round win.

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All Star

Vitality's dominance might not have been obvious from the EVPs, but it certainly is in the all-stars.

So much, in fact, that we are enforcing our rule around a maximum of three players appearing from one team.

That is to the detriment of mezii, who misses out on Anchor because he had the closest competition out of the Vitality cohort.

Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo, jottAAA, and HeavyGod's names were also thrown in the ring for Anchor but Ayush "⁠mzinho⁠" Batbold had the win thanks to being the only one with a POTM showing in the arena (map two versus Aurora).

Read more

mzinho: "In America, we have a crowd like our home crowd"

Spinx, another name familiar to Vitality, ensures some MOUZ representation as our Closer and was particularly effective on T side in Dallas as a lurker (0.22 trade kills per T round, 1.42 clutch points per 24 T rounds).

flameZ beats out Senzu and XANTARES for Opener because of his importance to Vitality's trophy lift as their second-best in map wins (1.19 rating, +1.61% round swing).

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Players with multiple awards in 2025

Our table grows in size but so does ZywOo's lead at the top with six MVPs from the six most prestigous events so far in 2025. Roll on Austin.

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The EVPs of 2025