Vitality Make It Through to Legends in IEM Rio

After the last few days of rough competition, one of the best CS:GO teams in the world, Vitality, have made it through to the Legends stage. This comes after their surprise appearance in the Challengers stage despite their world standings.

Vitality have had it rough over the last few months and are probably unaccustomed to playing in the lower levels of a Major. However, they really took it in their stride and it made it through on a very respectable 3-2. Legends begins tomorrow and although there's a long road ahead, a large part of the journey is already behind them.

Victories - hard fought on Inferno

Vitality came into Rio as a favorite to win alongside the likes of NaVi and FaZe Clan. But victory won't come easily as they've already been competing for the last few days whereas the other teams are only just gearing up to begin tomorrow.

In round 1, Vitality took a decisive win against Imperial, one of the true underdogs of the tournament. It was looking good for them but round 2 and 3 didn't turn out as well. It came down to the last couple of games of Challengers and with their backs against the wall, Vitality picked up wins against Grayhound Gaming and first time Major attendees OG.

Some fans may be speculating about how much further Vitality can go. It seems that they were only able to edge out wins against objectively less experienced teams. However, it remains to be seen whether Legends was simply a warm up for these veteran CS:GO players.

Defeats - some surprises here

It seemingly goes without saying that most fans were surprised to see Vitality in Challengers in the first place and even more surprised that the second and third rounds proved difficult for them. They took losses against Team GamerLegion and Outsiders. While this will have been a big boost for these teams, Vitality’s mental certainly took a hit.

The losses came on Vertigo and Overpass, two maps that are usually fairly strong for this side. They also resulted in Vitality scraping through to Legends in 7th place of the 8 places available. IT really came down to their final match against OG and after a close 2-1 win, they were able to make it through.

What next for Vitality? Entering the Legends stage

The Legends stage of this tournament is due to begin on November 5th and will run until the 8th. Like the challengers stage, Legends will also take the form of a Swiss system, meaning not every team will play every other team. Vitality’s first match up is going to be against NaVi, which couldn’t really be a harder game if it tried. NaVi, like Vitality, have been known as one of the next teams in the world so this will certainly make for an exciting opening to the next phase!

Image source: Liquipedia