Vitality victorious in IEM Rio
Heroic and Vitality faced off in the Grand Final of IEM Rio 2023, the last international Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament to take place in Brazil with the upcoming switch to Counter-Strike 2.
With the Danes of Heroic looking to finally secure a championship in the South American continent after coming so close last November, it was up to the Europeans of Vitality to stop that and gain much-needed momentum ahead of the BLAST.tv Paris Major.
The match began on Vitality's pick of Vertigo, where the French had made a miraculous comeback yesterday against Cloud9 to secure their spot here in the final. This game was not as dramatic in terms of a comeback, but Vitality and Heroic did go back and forth throughout the map. With an 8-7 T-side in favor of Vitality, they were able to close it out to win 16-13.
Heroic sought comfort on their pick of Inferno, but they were quickly made aware that it they would need to do a lot to get through Vitality's defense. A 5-10 half on their T-side meant the Danes would be on the back foot on their own map pick. Vitality made sure to secure this second half, despite an incredibly slow start and allowing Heroic to tie it up at one point.
Vitality would show how strong they were and would close out the map 16-12 and win the series 2-0 to take a much needed event win as they look to win the BLAST.tv Paris Major.
VitalityHEROIC| Vitality |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Emil 'Magisk' Reif |
44 - 35 | +9 | 92.9 | 78.9% | 1.30 |
 Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut |
38 - 31 | +7 | 78.1 | 82.5% | 1.25 |
| Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen |
39 - 31 | +8 | 60.1 | 78.9% | 1.10 |
| Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire |
35 - 34 | +1 | 74.1 | 70.2% | 1.06 |
 Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi |
33 - 31 | +2 | 54.4 | 70.2% | 0.93 |
| HEROIC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casper 'cadiaN' Møller |
40 - 36 | +4 | 68.5 | 70.2% | 1.08 |
| Martin 'stavn' Lund |
29 - 35 | -6 | 68.8 | 75.4% | 0.96 |
| Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard |
34 - 40 | -6 | 74.3 | 63.2% | 0.96 |
| Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck |
27 - 37 | -10 | 54.6 | 68.4% | 0.86 |
| René 'TeSeS' Madsen |
31 - 42 | -11 | 58.9 | 71.9% | 0.84 |
