We’re critical of those we love, so the pundits say, and that’s as good a reason as any to continue to analyze Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional team, Vitality. Coming off yet another defeat at the hands of FaZe, the French team Vitality continue to struggle in making sense of plays around the superstar sniper ZywOo.
The most recent match, Vitality lost in a clean sweep, going down (0-2) in as many maps. Yet the causation is somewhat upsetting to look at. ‘ZywOo’ closed the series with the highest statistics in the server, wiping anyone that dared oppose him.
2-0 Ggs teamzywoo
— Håvard Nygaard (@FaZe_rainCS) November 16, 2019
This was observable in Inferno, where a singular pick from ZywOo at bombsite B would send the entirety of FaZe to bombsite A, as they would rather challenge the four other members of Team Vitality than ‘ZywOo’ alone. While this makes ‘ZywOo’ an impeccable anchor in objective play, the fact that the rest of his team would consistently get wiped by FaZe continues to spell problems for the French roster.
Team Vitality has made it known that they don’t very much appreciate ‘ZywOo’ getting so much of the spotlight, yet when he’s getting the only positive kill to death ratio (KDR) on his team, it’s difficult to say anything very positive about the struggling team. ‘RpK’ had noticeably poor performance as well against FaZe, with the entry-fragger ending up with a deeply negative ratio with a 29/43 KDR.
Looking back to Team Vitality against NiP, where Vitality lost again in a clean sweep (0-2), and it’s very much the same story. While ‘ZywOo’ had a notably worse performance in that series, ending at the second-highest KDR in the server for his team, he was still the primary instrument in Team Vitality’s run.
Frankly, he always has been. It’s simply not enough to continue to carry the French team to victory any more. The other teams have far too many tricks and tactics to run where there is a deep involvement of every man on the roster, and the single-player team carries seems to now be a thing of the past.
Opposing professional Counter-Strike teams have begun calling Team Vitality, Team ZywOo, on account of the singular danger of their team. If a team near-forfeits a match because a singular player went down, it’s arguably not much of a team at all.
Team Vitality has been rather quiet in regards to the French sniper constantly attempting to carry them, but it’s expected that this will all come to a head rather soon. Frustrations continue to mount as the French team, still rated as #5 in the world, fails to perform. Fans are waiting on some type of announcement from the team, of either picking up fresh blood, or swapping in-game roles.
Beyond that, they don’t look salvageable to take any majors coming at the end of this year against heavy-hitters like Astralis or Evil Geniuses.
