Welcome to EGamersWorld.
We continue to watch the action at BLAST Premier: World Final 2024. This is one of the biggest tournaments of the season with a total prize pool of $1,000,000 with $500,000 for first place.
We are talking about the group stage of the title tournament, more specifically Group B. There in the first round we will see a match between Spirit and Vitality.
We are trying to figure out who will be stronger in this match and will go to the next stage of the group stage, and who will have to play a match for life in the next round.
Let's go.
Vitality Form
Let's open the Vitality vs Spirit match with an analysis of Vitality's form. In this match they play the number one with odds to win at around 1.6.
The first half of the 2023 season has been a real treat for Vitality. They started it off with a win at the Blast Premier Spring Groups and Top 6 at the top IEM Katowice 2023 and ESL Pro League Season 4. Next was Top 3 at European RMR B and triumph at the most domestic Major e - BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. After winning the Paris Major e Vitality took the top 2 at the spring finals of BLAST, Ledge and Heroic in the grand finals.
The last tournament before IEM Katowice was BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023. There Vitality showed a worse result than expected, with the top 6 in the end.
- Vitality lineup: apEX, ZywOo, mezii, Spinx, flameZ.
After the triumphant Paris Major a Vitality said goodbye to Dupreeh, and flameZ took his place. The "newcomer" Vitality has already had time to adapt and looks good: the young Israeli has KDA 1.09 and this is the third result of the team. He, by the way, started his ascent on the big stage with OG.
In their debut match at IEM Cologne 2023, Vitality only confirmed their status as one of the main favourites in Group B. OG tried, but were defeated 16-6 by Mirage and 16-13 by Anubis.
After defeating OG, Vitality took on MOUZ, who were dealt an even bigger blow by the Bees, 16-4 and 16-5.
In the match for seeding in the play-offs Vitality met another top club - G2 Esports. A nerve-wracking game where Vitality pulled out a 19-17 win on Inferno in the extra time, but then lost 10-16 to Vertigo and 8-16 to Mirage.
Starting the play-offs from the first round stumbled Cloud9. "Cloud9 tried to fight back and almost succeeded on the second map, but ZywOo and company were undeterred: 16-11 Mirage and 19-17 Inferno. However, this was the end of Vitality's stay at the tournament: they met ENCE in the semi-finals and lost with 1-2 score and dropped out of the championship.
The top 4 at IEM Cologne did not embarrass Vitality at all, on the contrary - it fuelled them. Before the end of the year they pocketed 3 more wins at title tournaments: they took revenge on ENCE in the Gamers8 Grand Final and beat FaZe twice at BLAST tournaments (Fall Final 2023 and World Final 2023).
Before playing at PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024: European RMR B played BLAST Premier: Spring Groups, where they passed the group stage without any problems and at IEM Katowice 2024, where they failed very unexpectedly, finishing top-12.
At the PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024: European RMR B Vitality stomped GamerLegion and Heroic without any problems, giving up a total of 5 rounds in two maps. And then it was worse - a loss by C9, but a win over ENCE allowed Vitality to reach the Major.
Vitality attended the first Major tournament of the season - PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024, where they managed to reach Top 4, but Ledge and FaZe Clan. Later they played at ESL Pro League Season 19, where they again started very cheerfully and easily made it to the grand finals, but there they were swept by MOUZ.
At the IEM Dallas 2024 Long Season, they started with a very difficult win over Monte, and then closed G2 Esports dry. But in the match for seeding in the play-offs quite unexpectedly Ledge and 9z Team with a score 0-2. The play-offs IEM Dallas 2024 started much more confidently, closing Heroic with 2-0. Then a confident win over Spirit, but a loss to G2 Esports in the grand finals.
Before appearing at Esports World Cup 2024, Vitality attended Blast Premier: Spring Final, where they reached the Top 4. At EWC 2024, Vitality Long Sogpeg started off with a solid win over M80, which allowed them to go straight into the play-offs. However, Vitality were then very unexpectedly eliminated in the first round of play-offs, Ledgeiv Vp.
Vitality travelled to IEM Cologne 2024, where they were triumphant for the first time in the 2024 season. In the final, Vitality managed to beat the best team in the world at the time, NaVi, 3-1.
Later there was a performance at the ESL Pro League Season 20, where the "bees" had no problems in the play-offs, but very unexpectedly lost to Eternal Fire in the quarter-finals. A similar result was repeated at BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024, but then Vitality lost to the future champions from G2 Esports at the top-4 stage.
Vitality's mappool
Vitality's best map is Nuke. There are 4 matches and 4 wins.
Anubis (7 matches, 85% wins), Mirage (4 matches, 75% wins) are very good. In general, Vitality doesn't have any bad cards that they play. Vertigo - 71% wins in 7 matches, Inferno and Overpass - 3 wins in 5 matches.
Ancient is not played.
Spirit Form.
We continue our analysis of the Spirit vs Vitality match with an analysis of Spirit's form. In this match they will play as an outsider with odds to win at around 2.2.
The 2023 season has been a busy one for Spirit. The Serbian club has played wherever they can, but they have not managed to get any significant results.
They started the previous season with an appearance at IEM Master Katowice 2023, where they finished in the top 12. Then there was the local CCT Central Europe Malta Finals 2023, where they finished in the top 6.
One of the biggest tournaments of the 2023 season for Spirit was ESL Pro League Season 17, where the Dragons finished in TOP-28. They tried to make it to the Major in Paris, but again all in vain.
From the middle and up to the end of the year Spirit played at local events of small calibre. And they were quite successful, it is worth mentioning: TOP-1 at CCT North Europe Series #6, TOP-2 at CCT Online Finals #2, victory at Dunav Party LAN and Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #2.
- Team Spirit roster: chopper, zont1x, sh1ro, donk, magixx
At the end of the year they won the BB Dacha. In 2024, BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024 was the first major event for the Dragons. Spirit played frankly poorly there: they finished in the top 16 at their debut BLAST Championship, advancing to the Spring Showdown.
At IEM Katowice 2024 Spirit started their performance at the Play-In stage. There they beat Apeks 13-0 without a chance, and then confidently (except for 2 maps) beat MongolZ 2-0, thus qualifying for the group stage. The group stage was not a problem for Spirit either: after giving up only 1 map to NaVi, they easily made it to the play-offs by beating CoL and FaZe Clan 2-0. The IEM Katowice 2024 play-offs confirmed Spirit's dominance, as they easily shut down Falcons (2-0) and it was even easier against FaZe in the grand finals (3-0).
After the triumph at Katowice 2024, Spirit made it to PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024, where they managed to reach the play-offs, but Ledge and FaZe Clan in the first round of the main stage. In doing so, Spirit finished in the top 8.
Spirit had a kind of successful performance at BB Dacha, but a 0-3 loss to MOUZ in the grand finals spoilt things a bit.
At IEM Dallas 2024 Team Spirit had a very easy time in the group stage, not giving up a single map in the B basket. However, they didn't manage to beat everyone in the play-offs: Vitality intervened at the TOP-4 stage and knocked Spirit out of the tournament.
Later Spirit won the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. And then came a string of poor performances, including Top 8 and Top 16 at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2024.
ESL Pro League Season 20 Team Spirit started with Group B, where they defeated Ledge and MIBR in the second round of the upper grid and after dropping below, they had no trouble beating The MongolZ and 3DMAX, which gave them a pass to the play-offs, where they beat FURIA 2-0 in their first match. Later they ran into NaVi, after their defeat they finished the pro league.
Spirit played at BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024, where they didn't find success either. They only finished in the top 6.
Team Spirit Mapple
The best map of Team Spirit remains Vertigo, where the Brazilians played 5 times and won in 3 maps. Next is Mirage, with 7 games and 4-3 statistics.
The neutral choice for Team Spirit will be Nuke and Ancient. The Brazilians have 6 maps there and the score is 3-3 on each.
The worst is Overpass (2-3) and Inferno (1-2).
History of head-to-head meetings Spirit - Vitality
Previously the teams have played each other twice and so far the score is tied.
Predicted result of Vitality vs Spirit on BLAST Premier: World Final 2024
In this match I will expect Vitality to win. Still, the French are much more stable than Spirit. The latter shone on Katowice, but after that only rarely got a win, like on BLAST Premier: Spring Final and local Dacha Belgrade.
Bottom line: Vitality won.
