Rewind: Team Vitality’s triumph at BLAST Premier World Final 2023

Counter-Strike is a game series that has been attracting new audiences for more than 2 decades. After all, its mechanics, fun gameplay, and competitiveness are beyond any other game in the genre. Speaking of competitiveness, there are tons of tournaments and leagues held for Counter-Strike each year. One of those leagues is the BLAST Premier League. For that reason, we rewind and see how the latest BLAST Premier World Final and the Team Vitality Triumph went.

BLAST Premier tournament history

BLAST Premier is a Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) professional esports league that was launched in 2020 as a successor to the BLAST Pro Series. The league is divided into two seasons per year: Spring and Fall, each with a group stage, a showdown, and a final. The winners of each season’s finals, as well as the winners of other prestigious non-BLAST Premier events and the top-ranked teams in the BLAST Premier Global Leaderboard, qualify for the Global Finals at the end of the year.

The BLAST Premier series has had some of the top teams, and players compete in. Some of them are Natus Vincere, Team Vitality, G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, and many others.  The next big tournament of the BLAST Premier series will be the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, which will start on March 17, 2024

Counter-Strike 2 BLAST Premier World Final 2023 champions rewind

The last BLAST Premier World Final took place from December 13 to December 17, 2023, in Abu Dhabi. The winner was Team Vitality, the French Counter-Strike 2 team after they defeated FaZe Clan in a dominant 2-0 fashion in the grand final. The tournament had a prize pool of $1,000,000, and eight of the best teams in the world competed. 

The road to the final

Team Vitality didn’t have much trouble in the group stage, where they took the top position in Group A. They competed with ENCE, Cloud9, and HEROIC. The French squad showed no signs of weakness, dropping only one match in the process. Their star player, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, was on fire, averaging a 1.44 rating and 0.90 kills per round.

In Group B, the FaZe Clan did have a challenge. They took the second position in the group, finishing behind Natus Vincere. They beat G2 Esports and MOUZ in the playoffs, both in a close 2-1 series. 

The Grand Final

The grand final was really an epic one. Team Vitality showed a tactical and structured approach where they took FaZe Clan’s innovative and aggressive playstyle. The first map they played was Inferno, picked by Team Vitality themselves. They managed to win 11 rounds as Terrorists in the 1st round. However, FaZe Clan did not give up and nearly succeeded with a comeback, but Team Vitality won the match with a score of 16-10. During this map, ZywOo was the leading player with 28 kills and a 1.76 rating.

The second map was chosen by FaZe Clan, and it was the Nuke map. Their choice was promising at the start, but quickly, Team Vitality took the charge and won 10 rounds as Counter-Terrorist. ZywOo was showing his MVP skills backed by shox. FaZe Clan gave their best, but they couldn’t handle Team Vitality’s defense. In the end, the match ended with 16-6 in favor of the French team. This secured their BLAST Premier World Final 2023 champions title. ZywOo was the undisputed MVP of the tournament, with 46 kills and a 1.74 rating in the grand final. 

The aftermath

Team Vitality’s victory at BLAST Premier World Final 2023 was their fourth major title of the year after winning the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. Nobody expected Team Vitality to have such an easy run this time around. Guessing the winner wasn’t easy for this tournament. With Team Vitality an easy stroll in the group phase and FaZe Clan struggling in theirs, there was no way to get the winner from the start. Even the biggest bookies couldn’t give the right odds. If you feel confident and you can predict the next champion, be sure to check the best Bitcoin gambling websites found here.  

The BLAST Premier World Final 2023 was the last big tournament of 2023, and the next one will be the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024. This tournament will start on March 17, 2024. It will feature 24 teams from around the world, where the prize pool of $1,250,000 will be up for grabs by all players. Again, the biggest contender for this tournament is Team Vitality, but they will face tougher competition than the Blast Premier World Final with teams like Natus Vincere, MOUZ, G2 Esports, and many others.