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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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We’ll have Vitality winning everything again for 50 please, Alex
Vitality look like they might be the best team in the world again, at least we had three events of variance, right guys?
Vitality may have been a little off the boil recently, but when they’re good, they’re really f-cking good.
And, as it happens, they looked like they were close to their top gear once more as they took down MOUZ 2-0 in the first semi-final of the day.
Beginning on Mirage, the UK crowd had welcomed their king into the arena with rapturous applause, and he instantly replied them with a quick three kills as he defended the A bombsite from MOUZ’ glocks.
MOUZ did at one point look like they might be able to make the first half competitive as Spinx picked up a 1v2 to save them after eco-round embarrassment, but we were watching first-half-of-the-year Vitality, and that means ZywOo is capable of things like this.
Once again MOUZ threatened a competitive map as they won three rounds to kick off the second half, but Vitality just weren’t arsed, they soon took back control and reminded MOUZ who wears the trousers in their relationship.
13-7. 16 strong kills for ZywOo. Simply lovely for the UK crowd.
Map two was far more competitive - at least for the first half.
Starting it with another pistol round win for Vitality, Spinx got MOUZ on the board with the gun that definitely isn’t still broken and the two teams then battled back and forth for a 6-6 half.
Heading into the second half, Vitality took control once more as they moved onto the CT side. ZywOo did ZywOo things in the pistol round, and the meek MOUZ team never fully recovered.
A disappointing result for them as they fell 13-8, it feels like their moment to potentially win on a big stage has already come and gone. Cologne was their chance and it was a chance they just couldn’t seize.
As for Vitality, well, we’ll know by tomorrow whether the era is still on or not.
Not too long ago, we told you the tale of the rather likeable NA org that decided to tank its roster after a disappointing Major campaign.
Now, we’re here to tell that the same NA org – no longer likable – is once again fucking with its roster in order to get back to their old roster that was actually somewhat decent, mostly because their VRS ranking has taken a nosedive.
Wildcard (if you hadn’t figured that out already) Have made two roster changes in the past week. The first saw longstanding member Sonic depart for NRG, whilst newer signing fr3nd was benched.
For his troubles, fr3nd received a glowing review from stanislaw, which is quite good considering he hadn’t even been bad during his time with the team and now faces a rather unfair benching, whilst Sonic has to go play with XotiC.
Maybe being on the bench isn’t that bad, actually.
In their place, Wildcard have restored phzy to their team after cutting his loan to 9INE short, and they’ve also signed F1KU – two moves we actually really like.
phzy is about as good as it gets for AWPing if you’re an NA team, and it was bizarre that they ever cut him in the first place. As for F1KU, he’s a very solid anchor player that should add a level of consistency to the team that they may not have had previously.
For a team called Wildcard, it’s actually quite sensible.
We have yet to see whether these moves have come too late to affect their Major qualification. But if that is the case, then it’s only what they deserve for blowing up their roster in the first place.
A string of shocking decisions that the organisation quickly came to realise had probably ruined both its reputation and chances to truly be competitive, so it’s no surprise that it’s quickly looked to reverse them.
Since the addition of molodoy FURIA have been absolutely flying, though sadly for Brazilian fans, that will only continue for FURIA this weekend when they arrive at de_airport.
With G2 claiming some impressive victories in the games leading up to the BLAST London semi-final, we really thought this game was going to be closer than YEKINDAR and his monitor. Though now with the gift of hindsight, it’s safe to say that wasn’t the case.
The series opened with G2’s map pick of Inferno where huNter- and his boys took control of the game early on in their T-side thanks to their recent impressive pistol round record continuing. Soon after, the game was already starting to slip away from FURIA when HeavyGod threw his weight around on the B-site as he killed four with two spray transfers.
FURIA did put a few rounds together late in the half, but a low buy force from G2 put that to a stop as the half ended 8-4 in G2’s favour.
A swap to the T-side certainly did FURIA no favours. Every area of the map was off limits, especially if they ran into G2’s CT-side demon SunPayus, who snuck through a smoke on long to destroy FURIA with a 3K spray-down, securing map point in the process.
FURIA did secure a round after that, and that would be great if it wasn’t for the fact it was the only round they won all half. Getting back up to throw one punch just to be knocked out straight after isn’t a good look, you probably should have saved yourself the embarrassment by staying down lads.
It did look like Mirage could be a bit different for FURIA as molodoy opened the game with four glock kills and a clutch on the B-site. They even prevented the game from getting away from them early this time thanks to a 1v1 Yekindar clutch with 4 seconds remaining on the clock, followed up by some nice fast A-site hits.
As impressive as some of those rounds were, they didn’t really matter once the second half kicked off.
What’s the only thing more embarrassing than only securing one T-side round on Inferno you might ask? Well, travelling all the way to London from Brazil as a fan to see your countrymen get smashed is probably the answer to that question, but FURIA failing to win a single CT-side round on Mirage is a close second.
With a dominant 2-0 in the bag G2 will now look ahead to the BLAST London 2025 Grand Final where they will face Vitality. Can a group of samurai take care of some fierce hornets? In real life you’d bloody hope so, but in Counter-Strike? Who knows.
A potential eighth (!) trophy of the year VS a potential first trophy in 307 days. On paper, this doesn’t feel like a fair fight.
The old “coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb” comes to mind. We seem to think about that a lot, actually.
G2 enter the BLAST Open London 2025 Grand Finals with a more than stellar run – well, for them, taking down Team Spirit and only falling to MOUZ in the online stage. They continued to go unbeaten in the playoffs, which, we’re told, is quite important for making grand finals.
We had to ask the voices for that one, because we’ve never been to a final in our lives. We can’t even play Final Fantasy. It scares us.
Vitality on the other hand looked good yesterday and look to be getting back in form from the first season of 2025. Apparently, you don’t just become rubbish after losing a handful of games.
Half the games that worried people, they won anyway. Guys, they’re still good.
Both teams are strong in their own right, but we need to see a bit more from G2 before we get too excited about seeing all five maps.
Vitality has more BO5s under their belt than any other team, and as mezii said they “have a serious record in finals” so G2 need to put their best feet forward (if we know G2 well, they’ll put two left feet forward).
Or maybe they just need a God.
HeavyGod has been on fire for the last few months (1.14 Rating) and stepped up even more so far in London (1.48 Rating). What’s a GOAT team to a God, if not a sacrifice?
Yeah, it would be nice for mezii to get a trophy in front of his home crowd but he’s hardly lacking in trophies this year, and maybe it’s G2’s time.
They’ve waited patiently, seen all your HLTV threads and angry tweets, and huNter- has marked all your names in his little black book. Vitality have made a habit of winning, but G2 have the insatiable hunger of a team that haven’t eaten in 307 days.
They’ll probably lose 0-3, though. Vitality are kinda good.
