Can Vitalitys 2025 become the single best year in Counter-Strike history?

It probably hasn’t gone many peoples noses by, that Vitality have had an insane year with trophies left and right. And while the latter part of 2025 didn’t start out too hot for them, they look to be back to winning ways.

For this comparison i’ve only looked at CS:GO and CS2, as my knowledge of 1.6 isn’t good enough to give any decent analysis.

Who even comes close?

There’s only one team that has a single year that is even worth comparing: Astralis. And the year I’m looking at for them is 2018. While they did have a good 2019 winning both Majors, the rest of that year wasn’t the best.

To start the comparison, i’ve made a table of both team results from their respective year. Below the table i’ll continue the analysis.

If you look at the results for each team it looks like they’re inverted. Astralis didn’t start the season hot, but ended the year on fire. Vitality has been the inverse, as they won seven tournaments in a row up until the summer player break. Since then, they’ve looked shakier and have ‘only’ won ESL Pro League.

Comparing the two seasons Astralis won 10 out of 17 tournaments and Vitality has won 8 out 14 played tournaments – with BLAST Rivals and the Budapest Major still left to play.

To equal total tournament wins Vitality would have to win both tournaments. This does also put them at one less tournament played than Astralis.

The seasons compared

Astralis heated up across the year and Vitality cooled off after the break, yet their outputs sit closer than the storyline suggests. The game also changed, with CS:GO’s MR15 giving way to CS2’s MR12 and the extra volatility that follows.

On pure talent, I still give Vitality the edge. device was a great, stable AWPer, but nobody stacks up cleanly against ZywOo. Beyond the headline star, the supporting casts feel broadly similar in output, which makes the ZywOo factor the separator.

Here is the difference that matters. Astralis did not play the 2018 meta, they made the meta. They did not build on someone else’s blueprint, they built the blueprint and forced everyone to study it. Vitality have adopted that structure and refined it for MR12, and they also happen to field possibly the best player in the world. Being first to reinvent how Counter-Strike is played carries more weight than being the best at a perfected copy.

The Astralis era was defined by the impossible: five players on the same page at all times, utility perfect and decisions synced. Vitality 2025 run a deep book and have perhaps the most unselfish superstar in the scene to push them over the line when it matters. Both models win. One defined the game.

This is not a knock on Vitality’s star power. Calling it just ZywOo is lazy. But pretending that equals a system that rewired the whole scene is lazier. Different kinds of dominance deserve different grades.

Astralis squeezed teams on any map, suffocating on CT and surgical on T. At their peak, Vitality’s pool looked just as wide. The bigger tell has been how often Vitality closed series cleanly without being pushed, which is harder in MR12.

Winning lots of trophies is nice, but Majors are what really matters. Vitality already have one in 2025. Astralis won one in 2018. If Budapest becomes a second Major in a year for Vitality, the discussion shifts from strategy to pure output.

So who had the better year?

As of today, Astralis 2018 still hold the single-year crown. I put weight on a style that defined an era, paired with trophies. Astralis closed the year with momentum and set a template the scene still follows. Vitality have adapted and refined that approach for MR12, but they lean more on individual brilliance than Astralis did.

With that said, the year is not over. Vitality are one result away from changing the discourse. If they win Budapest, a second Major in the same year, that puts their hardware on par with Astralis 2018 and makes this a debate.

Across years, Astralis remain the greatest team to play Counter-Strike. When a team rewrites how the game is played for years, that legacy should outrank most trophy counts. Add a cabinet to match, and the debate ends.