The price of success

By
Michael
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With a convincing 2:0 win over FaZe Clan, Team Vitality won the BLAST Premier: Fall Finals last weekend. The French org continues to collect titles – despite or perhaps even because of various emotional adversities

The group was confidently concluded with some very clear map victories against Heroic and Complexity. In the subsequent semifinals, they kept the upper hand against the secret favorites from Cloud9, only to make short work of the current world number 1 – FaZe Clan – in the grand final.

After the Gamers8, the Major in Paris and the IEM Rio, this is now the fourth major trophy in 2023 for Team Vitality

Fans of the French organization will get their money’s worth this year. Even if they have already been exposed to a rollercoaster of emotions several times due to the many and often surprising roster changes in 2023.

Team Vitality: When success proves you right

The story that 2023 would be the most successful year in Team Vitality’s Counter-Strike history began, as so often, a little earlier. More precisely, in January 2022, when Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, Emil “Magisk” Reif and coach Danny “zonic” Sorensen were signed as three cornerstones for the upcoming success.

Together with superstar Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, the savvy veteran in-game leader Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and the rising star Lotan “Spinx” Giladi, who was then signed in August 2022, the sextet came together, which ushered in the era of success with the first major title after almost a year of drought: Winning the ESL Pro League Season 16 in October 2022.

 

It was a first glimpse into the future and what was to come with this roster. Winning the IEM in Rio de Janeiro followed in April, and just under a month later the big triumph on home soil at the last Major in CSGO history in Paris.

In the midst of the fans’ ongoing celebrations, however, a shocking piece of news fluttered out of nowhere a month later: Shahar “flameZ” Shushan was signed. In his place, the now most successful Counter-Strike player in the world with five major titles dupreeh suddenly found himself on the bench.

It was quickly discussed to what extent such a move was correct towards such a deserving player, indeed a legend of Counter-Strike eSports, especially as he was still capable of outstanding performances in conjunction with the other four. Aside from the moral correctness of the move, however, the sporting aspect was the main topic

While it made perfect sense to rejuvenate his team over time, after all dupreeh at the time of the switch, he was already in his upper CS age of 30. In turn, flameZ was just 20 and blessed with talent that could certainly match that of dupreeh in the long run. But Vitality were clearly the best team in the Counter-Strike circus at the time, so why trade the best present in their club’s history for a potentially promising future without needing to?

The continuing success proved the decision-makers in Vitality’s management right, however. flameZ seamlessly integrated into the well-oiled machinery of the Bees without any major adjustment problems. Just under a month and a half after the demotion dupreeh’s 3rd/4th place at the IEM in Cologne proved that Vitality is still more than capable of competing. Another two weeks later, winning Gamers8 underlined the obvious:

History repeats itself

However, the switch from Global Offensive to Counter Strike 2 caused a few problems even for the otherwise flexible bees. At the IEM in Sidney, they couldn’t get past a disappointing 13th-16th place. The ride on the highest point of the endorphin wave seemed to be over.

Despite all this, an outcry went through the Vitality fan camp when, at the beginning of November – just a month after the botched CS2 premiere at IEM Sidney – the next deserving veteran was suddenly benched with Magisk despite continuing to perform well.

Too short seemed to some the time given to the existing team to adapt to CS2, too proactive the signing of William “mezii” Merriman, who brings a certain reputation with him, especially through his time at Cloud9 and Fnatic, from the dazzling portfolio of a  Magisk but is as far removed as Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliw from playing CS2 competitively for NaVi at the moment.

In hindsight, however, nobody cares anymore. With a convincing performance, they defeated Heroic, Complexity, Cloud9 and FaZe Clan on their way to the BLAST Premier trophy. mezii was by far the worst Rifler at Vitality, at least in terms of rating.

 

But the decision-makers in the background couldn’t care less. On paper, there are four S-Tier trophies within a year. This means that 2023 is already the most successful year since Team Vitality entered Counter Strike.

And at the end of the day, fans are certainly happy to accept the occasional emotional rollercoaster ride for such success