Vitality needed divine intervention, and kept praying and praying to ZywOo. They handed the Frenchman rifles while his teammates slummed it with pistols. They gave him the big green gun. They gave him everything he needed, but their prayers went unanswered in the Cathedral.

It started on Mirage.

ENCE’s problem - if you could diagnose it as such - has been their CT sides, and that came back to sting them once more, as Vitality cut through them and collected nine rounds. dycha was struggling, NertZ quiet - and Vitality gliding.

But it doesn’t always work out like that. ENCE’s T sides are better than their CT sides are dodgy. Snappi called a masterclass, as his most noble soldier, Maden, raced into sites and chopped off heads.

Vitality fought back to take it to round 30, but with the game on the line Snappi pulled out the ballsiest call possible. A fast, almost completely dry A rush. And it f***ing worked.

Snappi himself closed it with a tidy 1v2, but it was the call that made the round possible.

Vitality aren’t champions for nothing, though. They hit back with a massive CT side on Nuke, with ZywOo and Spinx combining for well over 200 damage a round. Eleven rounds - one of which a complete mess that derailed ENCE completely - put Vitality in the driver’s seat.

ZywOo, though, faded. He picked up just nine kills as Vitality ran into the brick wall over and over. That brick wall was SunPayus.

Multifrag after multifrag, entry after entry - he had ZywOo in his pocket, and shut down Vitality to the tune of ten CT rounds of their own. apEX spotted the weakness, however, and much like Snappi called a masterful A pop and cleaned up NertZ and Maden, who had struggled all game.

That left us on Vertigo, where SunPayus continued to dominate.

His game was summed up when halfway through the first half he hopped through a smoke, dry, to scope on sandbags and remove ZywOo from the equation almost immediately. He could do no wrong, rifle or AWP (or even Dualies).

Maden, too, had ZywOo on toast. Much like CYPHER did at the Major, he crept up ramp and picked off ZywOo time and time again, completely changing the scope of the game. When Vitality can’t rely on ZywOo, who can they go to?

Spinx tried his damnedest, but ENCE were insatiable. Vitality won both pistols, and broke ENCE’s economy even after losing the round after, but were still nowhere near beating them.

ENCE might just be the best team in the world - and SunPayus?

The sky cannot limit the sun. Nothing can.

Ancient has been Astralis’ fortress for the last few months, but clearly even the most defended fortress aren’t impenetrable for the deadliest huNter.

Kovac number two tore a hole in Astralis’ squeaky clean record with a stunning performance, backed up by the always-ludicrously impressive m0NESY cleaning up with big gun.

huNter was in the flow state, most aptly demonstrated when he picked up the opening kill in middle, before walking out of A main late catching the entire Astralis team unaware and picking off blameF as he rotated back, securing an open line for G2 to waltz into the site.

Astralis’ only beacon of hope came in round 16, as blameF turned G2 to mincemeat in main with all five kills off the Dualies. It says quite a lot about Astralis’ game, though, that that doubled his kill count.

Inferno was a complete whitewash, with NiKo completely taking over.

He blitzed through the B defence over and over as Staehr and Buzz had no answer for his aggression, doubling up multiple times early on in rounds and dragging G2 to an insurmountable lead on the T side.

Genuinely, talking about any other player in that game would be a waste of time. NiKo was far and way the best player on map two.

Well, we can talk about blameF being last alive every round, except against pistols where he was suddenly aggressive, but…

Well well well, G2 could win another big IEM event.

For all of the doubters, for all of the rumours of HooXi’s departure, for everything said about this team - they’re in another big grand final.

They face off against a resilient ENCE team, with Snappi’s revenge arc taking him all the way to a second IEM final himself. ENCE, let’s not forget, won IEM Dallas. Both of these teams know how to win big events.

ENCE looked like the best team in the world yesterday, but G2 have been untouchable too. Both have beaten the de facto #1 team in the world Vitality, and both have a chance to stake a claim on the title themselves.

G2’s demolition job on an impressive Astralis team was nothing short of awe-inspiring - not in an abstract, ‘wow that was incredible!’ way, in an ‘oh, that was genuinely terrifying’ kind of way. ENCE toppled a giant, and will need to do it again - but that’s what they’ve been doing consistently for the last 12 months.

Whatever happens - don’t miss any of it. Sparks are going to fly.

• w0nderful seems to be in trouble with the Ukrainian Esports Federation for… playing with Russians.
• Everything is bigger in Germany.
• Snappi gave credit to his coach for the great call we praised him for, late in the day. In our canon, it was all him.