Vitality win final CS:GO Major in Paris

Vitality have won the final Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major held in Paris, taking down GamerLegion in the finals in the Accor Arena.

The BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 was the final CS:GO Major before Counter-Strike 2 is released later this summer. With the win, Vitality won their first-ever Major trophy as an organisation in front of their home crowd, while their players created multiple records through the Major win.

It was a dominant Major campaign from Vitality as they matched Natus Vincere’s unbeaten run from their 2021 Major-winning campaign. 

Vitality’s road to the final was relatively easier than that of GamerLegion as they took down Into the Breach and Apeks in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively. For GamerLegion, who were on the brink of elimination in the Challengers Stage being 0-2 down after the first day, siuhy and his men went to turn things around and qualify 3-2 for the Legends Stages and then stunned everyone to make it to the playoffs, where they took down Monte with relative ease and then shocked the world as they took down tournament favourites Heroic in the semi-finals. 

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The opening map of the finals was played on GamerLegion’s pick of Overpass, with Vitality starting on the CT half. GamerLegion picked up the opening pistol round, but Vitality bounced back on the force buy. Vitality got an early 6-1 lead before GamerLegion responded with upgraded pistols for their second round. It was a stellar first half from apEX and his men as ZywOo and Spinx‘s strong showing saw Vitality take an 11-4 lead. GamerLegion picked up the second pistol as well, converting both the pistols in the opening map, but once again Vitality took the force buy and picked up the first map at 16-6, with Spinx and apEX ending up with the most frags for Vitality at 24 and 23, respectively. 

The second map was Vitality’s pick of Nuke, with GamerLegion getting things underway on the CT half. After taking the pistol yet again, they went 2-0 up before Vitality won the first gun round, but GamerLegion responded right back with a 4K from iM. A stellar half from iM saw GamerLegion end the first half with a strong 10-5 lead, as the Romanian rifler ended the half with 23 kills. 

Vitality picked up the second pistol. The following conversion saw them get the score to 10-7. While both the teams traded rounds, it was ZywOo and Magisk who stepped up and made sure Vitality didn’t allow GamerLegion to come back as they secured the map at 16-13 and picked up the organisation’s first Major trophy.

It was apEX‘s second Major trophy, Spinx and ZywOo‘s first and Magisk‘s fourth. dupreeh ended the CS:GO era as the most decorated player ever with a record five Major trophies, cementing his name in CS:GO history. It was also zonic’s (the Vitality coach) fifth Major trophy, after he won four with Astralis. For his stunning performances throughout the tournament, ZywOo won the MVP award and ended the tournament with a 1.39 rating.