They called it “time for revenge”, and revenge they got. MOUZ eliminated Vitality from IEM Cologne with a 2-1 victory. They can now qualify for the playoffs with a victory against NIP or G2 in the Lower Final tomorrow.
It all started on a sour note though for MOUZ on their own map pick of Inferno. A strong T side in the second half for Vitality paved the way for the French/Danish roster to lock in the map. Mathieu ‘ZywOo‘ Herbaut dropped 32 kills during the 28 rounds it took Vitality to win 16-12.
The same trend continued on Overpass. Another excellent T-side from Vitality gave them a 9-6 lead. But then everything crashed hard for Vitality. MOUZ ruined the French/Danish defense and won the second half 10-1 to force the match into Nuke for a decider. This was the fourth time at IEM Cologne, that Vitality lost their own map pick.
Nuke did not get much for better for apEX and his men. A poor CT side left Vitality with a mountain to climb in the second half. With in-game leader Christopher “dexter” Nong both calling and fragging hard, MOUZ had everything going for them. In the end Vitality did actually make a nice attempt to comeback into the match, and got extremely close at 12-14 to almost level the score, but Ádám “torzsi” Torzsás kept his head cool in a 1vs1 situation with ZywOo to clutch the map and match for MOUZ.
Vitality had their chances both on Overpass and Nuke, and will leave Cologne disappointed with their performance which dupreeh rightly called “night and day” in an interview with Pley.gg a couple of days ago. The big question is if there are going to be changes during the summer in the Vitality camp.
MOUZ finally got their revenge after losing out to Vitality in knockout matches at Katowice, Dallas, and the Major qualifier in Romania, and can now look forward to a battle with either NIP or G2 about one of the last two remaining tickets to the playoffs tomorrow.
Team Vitality – MOUZ 1-2 | IEM Cologne
