Vitality Win IEM Rio 2023 with 2-0 Sweep over Heroic
IEM Rio 2023 has been an incredible event, with massive support from the Brazillians, and of course, Heroic making it to another Grand Final. However, it was Vitality who came out on top at the end, defeating Heroic in a 2-0 sweep to take home the trophy, $100,000 and a guaranteed spot at IEM Cologne 2023. Here’s how Vitality made it to the Grand Final, and how they took the series.
Vitality’s Journey to the Grand Final
Team Vitality started off IEM Rio with a close fought defeat. A 19-17 loss to OG on Overpass saw Vitality start the tournament with a 0-1 record, and instantly move down to the lower bracket in their group. However, a dominant 2-0 win over MiBR was followed by another 2-0 sweep over ESL Pro League Season 17 Winner FaZe Clan, and put Vitality in the lower final.
Here, they took on OG once again, and while they started the series 1-0 down following a 16-14 defeat on Mirage, Vitality came back to take the series 2-1, getting revenge with a 16-11 Overpass victory. In the playoffs, Vitality took down a momentum filled BIG 2-0, before defeating Cloud9 2-1 in an extremely close Semi-Final matchup to book their spot in the Grand Final.
Vitality 2-0 Heroic - IEM Rio Grand Final
Seven out of the 10 players in the IEM Rio Grand Final were Danish, and they dominated. The top three rated players in map one of this series were all Danes, but it was the three time Major winner Magisk who topped the leaderboard, and put up a massive 26k as Vitality’s 16-13 victory on Vertigo put them 1-0 up in the Grand Finals.
While the Danish players showed out in map one, it was the French who took map two into their hands. apEX and ZywOo topped the leaderboard with 1.46 and 1.38 HLTV ratings respectively as Vitality won 16-12 on Inferno, winning the map, the series and the tournament.
Vitality deserved this win completely, with two of their players finishing inside of the top 8 rated players at the end of the event. Vitality also ended the tournament with the highest overall rated team at 1.15, a massive advantage over 2nd highest rated Heroic, who had a 1.08.
The next biggest CS:GO event will be the final Major in Paris, starting on May 8th with the Challengers stage and concluding on May 21st, naming the last ever CS:GO Major winners.
