The match between the fourth and seventh-best teams in the world did not provide as much excitement as was expected thanks to strong performances from all five Vitality members, with the Frenchmen securing a confident 2-0 win over BIG.
Vitality continued their winning streak on Dust2, now reaching five consecutive map wins, and shrugged off BIG on Inferno after a near-perfect start to the offensive side to claim the series. BIG will have a chance to redeem themselves in the lower bracket of DreamHack Open Fall, where they will face the winner of Heroic – Sprout, while Vitality go on to face Astralis for a grand final spot on Friday, and could prove to be a difficult challenge for the team currently ranked #1.
ZywOo had another stellar series and currently boasts a 1.46 event rating
With both teams having strong records on Dust2, 82% win rate for BIG and 73% for Vitality, the initial map was a toss-up on paper. After picking it, the German side did start 3-0 up on it as Terrorists, but Cédric “RpK” Guipouy set up his team for a good CT half with an opening double in the first rifle round. Vitality brought out the double AWP on Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and Richard “shox” Papillon, and went up 7-4 before Nils “k1to” Gruhne‘s 4K with the Deagle allowed BIG to recover.
From an 8-7 half, Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz‘s team equalized things with a pistol win, but lost the following force to Vitality‘s B push. The French team then took the reins of the match, reaching 14 rounds after RpK‘s eco ace, and closed out the map 16-11.
ZywOo‘s pistol quad-kill foreshadowed a great map from the wunderkind on Inferno, as he was sitting on a 16K-1D scoreline with Vitality 9-2 ahead as Terrorists. BIG stopped the bleeding there, locking down an A play to start their comeback to a 9-6 half scoreline.
That good work was canceled out by Vitality in the second half, as Dan “apEX” Madesclaire‘s men looked comfortable marching towards match point, but were stopped at a bit earlier, at 14, thanks to BIG‘s eco victory and a 3v5 turnaround (14-9). The Germans managed to reach 11 rounds before Vitality tied it all up, with a shox – RpK B lockdown and ZywOo‘s double kill that made it 16-11.
