ZywOo carries Vitality to EPICENTER glory

An absolute masterclass from Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut saw Vitality take EPICENTER 2019. The teenager dropped 87 kills over three maps, with only one overtime, as he put the nation of France on his back in Moscow.

Vitality started the T side of Inferno on fire, taking the first three rounds, but not with complete ease. frozen took down two with the deagle as Vitality hit B, but ALEX won an unlikely 1v2 to rescue the round. mouz took the first gun round, but were broken back as RpK took B almost single-handedly. 

At 5-1 down, ropz woke up, erupting auto-shotgun bullets from balcony to short, melting down two and winning the round with only seconds left. Vitality nearly broke right back, but a 2v2 retake from woxic and ropz got mousesports a third with 0.5 seconds left on the bomb.

mouz took over the economic game, and at 6-5 to them, a shox teamkill helped them to a seventh, but a similarly catastrophic round from mouz, where everybody missed a shot, got Vitality back into it. Unfortunately for them, they lost ZywOo early into the next round, so it was round over. 

Vitality ended up going in 8-7 down, but a ZywOo ninja got them the pistol round, as he defused under the nose of mouz. A chaotic round followed, which Vitality just about came away with.

frozen won a 1v2 after mouz lost a 4v2 lead, before Vitality won a 4v5 with pistols straight after. After another economy-breaking round from mouz, Vitality stole away a half buy with RpK taking down two with a P250 and ZywOo nailing two to the A site with the MP9. 

Vitality moved into a 14-11 lead, but mouz managed to steal two rounds in a row. At 14-13, chrisj had a legendary round. In a 2v5, after ZywOo pulled off an insane wallbang headshot with the AWP, he and ropz headshotted four between them, and ropz ended up taking down shox to complete the clutch. 

mouz hit A, and karrigan’s timing peek opened a crack, which ropz pulled apart with two kills for matchpoint, but an RpK triple got Vitality overtime. ropz again got two from balcony for mouz’ 16th, and a chrisj teamkill couldn’t help Vitality get the retake on B after apEX let mouz in.

For 18, mouz required some woxic heroics, as he danced through a smoke to snipe shox at close range in the 1v1. Vitality got one more round, but despite RpK getting them into B, they couldn’t close out on B and mouz took Inferno.

Vitality once again took the first pistol on Mirage, and once again by defusing under mouz’ nose, this time in a smoke. mouz forced back, but were unsuccessful, as ALEX held A expertly from under balcony.

As mouz converted the first gun round, and the next two rounds, Vitality ran up middle and got picked off by karrigan for mouz’ 4th. ZywOo finally got Vitality’s 4th at 6-3, as he won a huge clutch with the SG. 

But speaking of huge clutches, none were as ridiculous as frozen’s, who somehow, with only 10 seconds left, AWPed all three CT’s. He hit a clean shot to connector, found a jumping ZywOo in CT and with seconds left, obliterated shox through the triple box.

That clutch was so mind-blowing, it felt like Vitality were down and out. But ZywOo would not allow it. mouz took the pistol and looked to cleanly pick up the second, but ZywOo hit two one-deags to ruin their economy. In the next round, he picked karrigan on B and the round was already over.

mouz were 12-9 up, but ZywOo just took over on the stretch. He smashed mouz’ middle hold for 11, and sniped two on B again later on. RpK took down two from firebox for a huge clutch, which was handy, given how much he’d struggled.

Vitality ended the game with another B hit, but it was all about the French teenager, who ended the map 33-14.

They started Nuke on fire again, with an immediate 10-1 lead. RpK set the tempo with four on the pistol, before shox won a 1v1 to spare Vitality’s blushes after four one-deags from ropz and frozen combined. mouz did get the first gun round, but that was it for a while.

ZywOo could do nothing wrong, as he missed two shots and still got two kills to bring Vitality to five, before ALEX took over. He made a play through a smoke to shut down a secret take, ending the round with four, and then another four kill round to get Vitality to 8-1 up.

ropz and frozen finally got into A site with three kills, a B hit and a karrigan lurk got them their second, third and fourth rounds, before ropz somehow got two kills on 1HP to get mouz an unlikely 5 T rounds.

It was all for nought, though. Vitality won the pistol, and despite mouz breaking back, Vitality did the same back. ZywOo opened up A with two MAC-10 kills, and when chrisj’s smoke play got intercepted by RpK to get Vitality to 14, the game looked over.

mouz mounted a mini-comeback, getting the next few rounds, but a heaven lurk from ALEX bagged him a triple, and his call to go secret got Vitality a bomb plant on B to close the game.

Image via Team Vitality.

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