AVANGAR Upset Vitality 2-1 to Advance to the Berlin Major Semifinals

AVANGAR upset Vitality/ Vitality put away AVANGAR 2-1 this morning in the second quarterfinal matchup of the StarLadder Berlin CS:GO Major

It took three maps, but AVANGAR stunned Vitality/Vitality struggled through AVANGAR for a semifinal matchup against Renegades.

Vetos

Vitality removed Train
AVANGAR removed Nuke
Vitality picked Mirage
AVANGAR picked Inferno
AVANGAR removed Vertigo
Vitality removed Overpass
Dust2 is the decider

Map 1: Mirage

Vitality's map pick didn't go the way they wanted as AVANGAR outclassed them completely over the course of 25 rounds. Dzhami “Jame” Ali came up huge on Mirage, posting a 1.76 HLTV rating and a +17 kill differential. Despite taking both the T-side and CT-side pistols, Vitality lost to AVANGAR's third-round buy on both sides and seemed completely unable to deal with both Jame's and Sanjar “SANJI” Kuliev's heads up play. Vitality never won more than four rounds in a row and looked thoroughly outclassed on their own pick.

Teamwork at its best 🤜🤛 #BerlinMajor #CSGO pic.twitter.com/MeWwIYfmYa

— AVANGAR (@avangarkz) September 5, 2019

Map 2: Inferno

AVANGAR and Vitality both had times where they looked at home on Inferno, but Vitality ultimately pulled out the win to even up the series. In the first half, AVANAGAR took the pistol on their T-side despite two kills from both Vitality's Nathan “NBK” Schmitt and Cédric “RpK” Guipouy. The beginning of the map was a decent run for Vitality where they racked up a 6-2 scoreline, but AVANGAR pressed back with a 7-round run to end the half 9-6 up.

We're back on track!

1-1 in the series after we took Inferno 16-11. The Vitality section keeps getting louder and louder! #BuildingOurHistory pic.twitter.com/pzAyp35bc1

— Team Vitality 🐝 (@TeamVitality) September 5, 2019

The second half started off well for AVANGAR with a pistol round and second-round victory, but Vitality came fighting back in the third, kicking off a five-round win streak. AVANGAR seemed to bounce back with a three-round win streak of their own, but Vitality wrested control from the Kazakhstani team for a map two win with a final score of 16-11 to even up the series at 1-1. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut came alive on Inferno, posting an ADR of 100.3 and a 1.63 HLTV rating. No one on Vitality besides ZywOo had an ADR higher than 83.6 (Dan “apEX” Madesclaire).

Map 3: Dust 2

Dust 2 kicked off with an AVANGAR win off the back of a creative long boost to scope out the car position and a quad-kill from Alexey “qikert” Golubev. Vitality managed to pick up round three quite convincingly, but they couldn't hold off AVANGAR in round four, leading to a 5-1 scoreline for AVANGAR and a Vitality timeout in round 6. Vitality went double AWP coming out of the TO and ZywOo stymied the default catwalk execute with two kills. Jame‘s AWP picks and the overall ferocity of AVANGAR's site hits were too much for Vitality, however, leading to a first-half score of 12-3. AVANGAR newcomer Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev came alive on the T-side, posting a 13/0/6 stat line and 92.3 ADR after being all but invisible on both Mirage and Inferno.

Vitality took the second half pistol with an insane ZywoO ace that included a well-played 1v3 clutch. Vitality followed up ZywoO‘s heroics by barely scraping out the AVANGAR full eco but making a terrific read on the AVANGAR A-stack in round three to bring the score to 12-6. The French team would manage to close the gap against their opponents to four rounds with a four-round run to 10-14. Vitality's chances of a comeback would end there, however, as AVANGAR would win the final two rounds they needed to take the map 16-10.