Vitality march past Astralis in Cologne opener

The reigning IEM Cologne champs are off to a strong start after besting Astralis in two maps.

Vitality have kicked off the second half of their 2025 season in solid fashion, taking down Astralis 2-0 while also displaying impressive form on the newly reintroduced map of Overpass.

Vitality will now be squaring off against a Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač-led G2 for a shot at immediately securing a place in the playoffs of IEM Cologne. Meanwhile, Astralis will be fighting for their tournament lives in the lower bracket against FURIA.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2025
27/07/2025	G2 18:30 Vitality	Match
27/07/2025	FURIA 20:00 Astralis	Match

Vitality hit the ground running in their opening series, marching to a 5-0 start on Astralis' pick of Nuke. Astralis warmed up towards the end of the first half, peppering isolated round wins on the T-side to end the half with a 4-8 deficit.

Despite the difficult T-side on their own map pick, Astralis roared back into contention with a pistol round win, tying up the map 8-8. The two squads traded blows throughout the second half, but crucial impact from William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman and Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan got the international side over the line 13-11.

Vitality's pick of Overpass followed a similar pattern; Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's troops cruised to a 9-3 lead in the first half, but were denied a straightforward map victory after Astralis began putting up a fight after the side swap.

Astralis comeback efforts fell short of securing overtime, however, as the Danes fumbled a 5v3 anti-eco post-plant to allow Vitality to lock down their pick 13-8 and the series 2-0.

Could Vitality's map pool get even scarier?

Before the reintroduction of Overpass to the competitive map pool, Vitality already enjoyed a dominant map pool, sporting impressive win rates and few losses throughout 2025.

One of the team's comparatively weaker maps, however, was Anubis. The now-retired map was Vitality's least played in 2025, with only nine maps played, just behind Train where apEX's men made ten appearances. Across these nine maps, Vitality garnered six wins and three losses, netting a 66.7% win rate, their lowest in the pool.

While Vitality were no means slouches on Anubis, the reintroduction of Overpass offers the international behemoths an opportunity to shore up one of their few conceivable weak spots. With Vitality already picking Overpass in their debut match of the season, the map could end up becoming a staple for the international side as the second half of 2025 gets underway.