It’s lonely at the top. That also applies to Vitality, who has been nothing short of dominant in 2025, currently sitting comfortably on the Counter-Strike throne.
Having won five events in a row and one ESL Grand Slam already, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and his men seem unstoppable.
In a recent interview with BLAST, the French in-game leader was asked whether Vitality’s success has partly come from other top teams making changes. His response pointed instead to a common tendency in the scene:
– Whenever a team is dominating, people always want to remove credit from them and say other teams are playing worse, but it’s not my problem if they’re playing worse. My goal is to win as much as I can. With the team we have, we always stay hungry, we have a great work ethic, a mix of talents, and some pretty good players. All combined, it makes it all happen, apEX said to BLAST.
“I never expected to win that much”
The numbers don’t lie: 5 trophies, 27 bo3 victories in a row, and 1 ESL Grand Slam.
Vitality’s start to 2025 has been on another level, and also much better than expected. Something apEX acknowledged in the interview with BLAST ahead of IEM Dallas.
– It’s been an awesome year, we’ve won five trophies so far, which is the most I’ve won in a year and it’s only May. I’m pretty proud. I have to be honest, I never expected to win that much. I expected to win, because I know how talented my team is, but I never expected it to be this much. It’s a big surprise, but the sure thing is that whenever you win that much, you have the hunger to win even more and to win the most important one, so I’m looking forward to that now.
apEX and Vitality are currently competing at IEM Dallas, where they yesterday secured a spot in the playoffs.
