Online Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been upending everything that fans use to determine likely winners and favorites; BIG is the #1 ranked team in the world and were one of the first to drop out of the hotly contested online battle that pits the best against each other within their own regions.
Other bizarre occurrences have been more than ready to show their head in play: Astralis dropping out, Chaos slapping everyone they met until they hit Liquid, and more than a few poignant moments as NA teams take time out of matches to point towards significant cultural issues occurring within the United States at an alarming rate.
So there should be no surprise that the two European finalists are a bit of a surprise as well: Vitality and Heroic.
Vitality (GS#2) came out ahead against NiP earlier today, with both Shox and ZywOo partnering up and fragging out to the limit that has rarely been seen in the past months from the French team that encircles famed AWPer Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut as they climb to their ranking peak of #2 in the world at the moment. Yet ZywOo isn’t the entire story for the French stars vying for the tournament victory.
Both Richard ‘shox’ Papillon and Cédric ‘RpK’ (Le Tank) Guipouy have been stepping up consistently with massive clutches in the tournament that swings the pendulum of the economy back into Vitality’s favor, time and again; Richard had three clutches against NiP alone where he was outmanned and outgunned.
Team Vitality arguably look the best that they have ever been, even when they hit a hot streak with when NBK was still on their team. It’s balanced, tactical, and they hit their shots consistently.
On the other side of the matchup we have Heroic (GS#9) who appear more than ready to take on the mantle of the underdog in this match-up, but it’s far too early to count them out from the Bo3 beginning tomorrow at 1230 EST.
Heroic managed to edge out in front of G2 earlier today in a closely contested match-up that saw two maps of the Bo3 go into overtime; it was a match won by the skin of Heroic’s teeth until the final map against Mirage as Nikolaj ‘Niko’ Kristensen did standard Niko things and cracked the mentality of G2 with a flawless Ace.
The question of who precisely needs to step up for Heroic to put forward a win tomorrow is an ambiguous question; Niko and Martin ‘stavn’ Lund will both need to overcome minor hiccups in play to match the sheer ferocity of Vitality.
But this is an online match, and online CS:GO is strange at best: Astralis slapped Vitality in a clean sweep, who were then clapped by NiP, who then crumbled to Vitality. Anything can happen tomorrow, and you’ll want to make sure you’re local to watch the oddities occur on stream.
