Team Vitality win BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 in Abu Dhabi

19 December 2023

If, as a follower of international esports and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in particular, you hadn’t heard about Team Vitality before 2023, you will definitely have by now. The French esports organization has been one of, if not the single-most, dominant Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team of the year, winning several high-profile events. These include IEM Rio, Gamers8 and the BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark, just to name a few. On Sunday, December 17th, Vitality added yet another prize to their already impressive loot this year by winning the BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 that took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Not a single battle lost

The other big CS:GO name of the year, of course, is American esports organization FaZe Clan and like their rivals from Vitality, they showed why during the recent BLAST event in Abu Dhabi. Both teams managed a flawless Group Stage, with Team Vitality not losing a battle in group with Cloud9, Natus Vincere and ENCE, while FaZe finished first in Group B with G2 Esports, MOUZ and Heroic. In other words, the favorites for the title were in red hot form from the get go.

Thanks to their first places in their respective groups, both Vitality and FaZe Clan could enter the Playoff Stage in the semifinals. The former faced Ukrainian side Natus Vincere after they eliminated G2 in the quarterfinals, while the latter battled German side MOUZ (formerly known as mousesports). Thanks to perfect victories by both Team Vitality and FaZe Clan, both of the powerhouses met in the Grand Final without having lost a single battle up to that point.

As soon as the Grand Final got underway though, there really only was one team that showed up. On the first map, Inferno, they destroyed FaZe 13-5, followed by a 13-7 victory on Nuke in the next battle. As a result, there was no need for a third battle as Team Vitality managed to clinch the BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 without losing a single map. Despite this impressive achievement, Vitality is far from done if we go by their post-match comments.

“It’s been a good start”, said William “mezii” Merriman, “Hopefully we can just keep pushing on, like apEX said, the goal is the major and we’re going to keep working hard and keep grinding. This is just the start for me and the team. We had goals to do well at these tournaments, and that’s what we’ve done. Next year is where we build this momentum and just keep going with the confidence.”

Half a million in prize money

Besides the title and the glory, there was, of course, the prize money as well. As winners of the BLAST Premier: World Final 2023, Team Vitality took home no less than $ 500.000, one of their biggest loots since their inception in 2018. The runners-up FaZe Clan won $ 250.000, while numbers three and four (Natus Vincere and MOUZ) each got $ 85.000. Number five G2 Esports and number six Cloud8 earned $ 25.000 each, and finally, the numbers eight and nine (ENCE and Heroic) took home $ 15.000 worth of prize money.