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The Counter-Strike 2 competitive season is coming to its climax. Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Europe RMR A is coming up, where 16 teams will compete for 7 slots at Perfect World: Shanghai Major 2024, which will take place between 30 November and 15 December.
Among the contenders for PWE: Shanghai Major 2024 are place Vitality and GamerLegion. They are destined to play each other in the first round of Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Europe RMR A. The format of the meeting is Bo1.
Let's see if the obvious Underpassdog has a chance to defeat the titular Frenchmen or if everything will end up as expected.
Let's go.
Vitality Form
Let's open the analysis of Vitality vs GamerLegion match with the analysis of Vitality's form. In this match they play as clear favourites with odds to win at around 1.2.
The first half of the 2023 season has been a real treat for Vitality. They started it with a win at the spring Blast Premier groups and Top 6 at the top IEM Katowice 2023 and ESL Pro League Season 4. Next was Top 3 at European RMR B and triumph at the most domestic Major e - BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. After winning the Paris Major e Vitality took the top 2 at the spring finals of BLAST, Ledge and Heroic in the grand finals.
The last tournament before IEM Katowice was BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023. There Vitality showed a worse result than expected, with the top 6 in the end.
- Vitality lineup: apEX, ZywOo, mezii, Spinx, flameZ.
In their debut match at IEM Cologne 2023, Vitality only confirmed their status as one of the main favourites of Group B. OG tried, but were defeated 16-6 by Mirage and 16-13 by Anubis.
After defeating OG, Vitality took on MOUZ, who were dealt an even bigger blow by the Bees, 16-4 and 16-5.
In the match for seeding in the play-offs Vitality met another top club - G2 Esports. A nerve-wracking game where Vitality pulled out a 19-17 win on Inferno in the extra time, but then lost 10-16 to Vertigo and 8-16 to Mirage.
Starting the play-offs from the first round stumbled Cloud9. "Cloud9 tried to fight back and almost succeeded on the second map, but ZywOo and company were undeterred: 16-11 Mirage and 19-17 Inferno. However, this was the end of Vitality's stay at the tournament: they met ENCE in the semi-finals and lost with 1-2 score and dropped out of the championship.
The top 4 at IEM Cologne did not embarrass Vitality at all, on the contrary - it fuelled them. Before the end of the year they pocketed 3 more wins at title tournaments: they took revenge on ENCE in the Gamers8 Grand Final and beat FaZe twice at BLAST tournaments (Fall Final 2023 and World Final 2023).
Before playing at PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024: European RMR B played BLAST Premier: Spring Groups, where they passed the group stage without any problems and at IEM Katowice 2024, where they failed very unexpectedly, finishing top-12.
At the PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024: European RMR B Vitality stomped GamerLegion and Heroic without any problems, giving up a total of 5 rounds in two maps. And then it was worse - a loss by C9, but a win over ENCE allowed Vitality to reach the Major.
Vitality attended the first Major tournament of the season - PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024, where they managed to reach Top 4, but Ledge and FaZe Clan. Later they played at ESL Pro League Season 19, where they again started very cheerfully and easily made it to the grand finals, but there they were swept by MOUZ.
At the IEM Dallas 2024 Long Season, they started with a very difficult win over Monte, and then closed G2 Esports dry. But in the match for seeding in the play-offs quite unexpectedly Ledge and 9z Team with a score 0-2. The play-offs IEM Dallas 2024 started much more confidently, closing Heroic with 2-0. Then a confident win over Spirit, but a loss to G2 Esports in the grand finals.
Before appearing at Esports World Cup 2024, Vitality attended Blast Premier: Spring Final, where they reached the Top 4. At EWC 2024, Vitality Long Sogpeg started off with a solid win over M80, which allowed them to go straight into the play-offs. However, Vitality were then very unexpectedly eliminated in the first round of play-offs, Ledgeiv Vp.
Vitality travelled to IEM Cologne 2024, where they were triumphant for the first time in the 2024 season. In the final, Vitality managed to beat the best team in the world at the time, NaVi, 3-1.
Later there was a performance at the ESL Pro League Season 20, where the "bees" had no problems in the play-offs, but very unexpectedly lost to Eternal Fire in the quarter-finals. The same result was repeated at BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024, but then Vitality lost to the future champions from G2 Esports at the TOP-4 stage.
Prior to Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Europe RMR A played at IEM Rio 2024 and BLAST Premier: World Final, where they finished Top 6 and Top 4 respectively.
Map Vitality
The best Vitality map is Nuke. There are 4 matches and 4 wins.
Anubis (7 matches, 85% wins), Mirage (4 matches, 75% wins) are very good. In general, Vitality doesn't have any bad cards that they play. Vertigo - 71% wins in 7 matches, Inferno and Overpass - 3 wins in 5 matches.
Ancient is not played.
GamerLegion Form.
We continue our breakdown of the Vitality - GL match with an analysis of GL's match form. In this match they play as a clear outsider with odds to win around 4.
After the triumphant Paris Major a GamerLegion gave up in terms of performance. However, they are not weak, otherwise they would look much worse at major tournaments than they do now.
In 2023, GamerLegion didn't show much promise. They played well at local events like Thunderpick Bitcoin Series #2 where they won, CCT West Europe Series #1 where they finished top 2, RES Western European Masters: Spring 2023 where they finished top 2 again.
There was also TOP-1 at Elisa Invitational Winter 2023, but the main achievement happened in May this year. It was then that GamerLegion defied logic and made it to the grand final of BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, where they defeated the hosts Vitality.
- GamerLegion line-up: volt, sl3nd, aNdu, FL4MUS, ztr.
After a great injury in Paris, GamerLegion lost two of their headliners - siuhy and iM. New arrivals neaLaN and volt are not yet reaching the level of Top 2 Major a, and their KDs are eloquent: 0.64 for the former and 0.78 for the latter.
The first match at IEM Cologne 2023 was against Monte. The Ukrainian club was head to head and shut down their vis-a-vis with a score of 2-0 (16-8 Mirage, 16-11 Overpass).
GamerLegion managed to switch on at the last moment. In the match against TheMongolZ, on the first map GL Ledge were 8-16 up on Mirage, but cameback Inferno (16-8), and closed the series on the dopes with Overpass (19-15).
The International was even more interesting against fnatic. On the first map Vertigo GL lost with the score 5-16, but on Inferno GamerLegion played 16-12, and on Ancient they closed the dopes with the score 19-17.
As a result, IEM Cologne 2023 ended with GL in 8th place. They were knocked out by Cloud9, but the result is a good one considering the lineup change.
At Gamers8 Long Sogpeg were matched against Apeks, the other opener of the Paris Major. Both maps gave GL a serious headache, but after dopes on Mirage and a close fight on Overpass GL made it to the next round. However, that's where GL's G8 journey ended at the Top 8, when they lost to Heroic 1-2.
GamerLegion later attended ESL Pro League Season 18 and IEM Sydney 2023. Both tournaments didn't go well: top-20 at EPL, top-8 at IEM Sydney.
ESL Challenger Jonkoping 2023 GL is going pretty well. First Ledge beat MIBR 9-13, and then beat 3DMAX 2-1 in the match for life. With a race left, GL made it to the top 6, but there Ledgeili Vp.
Towards the end of the year Gamer Legion played at Elisa Masters Espoo 2023, where they got to the top 6, BB Dacha (top 8) and ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta. Top 8 there again.
There were two big tournaments in the 2024 season before RMR's Long Sogpeg - BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 and IEM Katowice 2024. Both GL championships finished in the top 12, which I would call a pretty good result.
At PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European RMR B GL Long Sogpeg started with a no-hitter against VItality (3-13) before beating Pera (13-6) and losing to ENCE (14-16) on dps. Later Ledgealy and Heroic, as well as 9Pandas in the Decider match, after which they were unable to go to the Major.
However, they ended up in Copenhagen, because 9Pandas couldn't get visas for travelling to Denmark. GamerLegion looked good in Copenhagen, but it was not enough to pass to the Elimination Stage, and GL's way at the first ever Major tournament on Counter-Strike ended on 17-19th line.
GamerLegion also played at ESL Pro League Season 19, where they finished in the top 16. They also played at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024, where they could not jump above the top-16.
After ESL Pro League Season 19 GL could not return to playing in TIR-S tournaments. Their maximum in terms of performance was Top-1 at CCT Season 2 European Series #13.
GamerLegion Mappool
The best map GL is Overpass. The team has 6 wins and 2 losses there.
There was also Ancient with 2 wins and 1 loss. Still have Mirage in the pool (57% wins in 7 matches).
On Inferno they are 2-2. Nuke has 1 try and a loss.
Not playing on Anubis and Vertigo.
History of head-to-head meetings GamerLegion - Vitality
Vitality have beaten GL twice in the 2024 season.
Predicted result of the match GamerLegion - Vitality at Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Europe RMR A
In this match my bet is on Vitality. I don't see much point in commenting on anything here. There were periods when GL gave a fight to the title clubs of Europe and not only, but all this passed half a year ago.
Bottom line: Vitality wins.