Vitality escape 0-3 disaster with comeback against Evil Geniuses at PGL Stockholm Major

Team Vitality finally showed some life at the CS:GO PGL Stockholm Major, recovering from a 0-2 start and an opening map loss in their elimination series, defeating and eliminating Evil Geniuses to keep their own playoff hopes alive.

The series started the way most expected, with the heavily favored Vitality jumping out to an early lead on Inferno, despite it being EG’s pick. On their CT side, the veterans in apEX and shox led the way with 16 and 14 kills each, and Vitality still led 10-5 at the half even with ZywOo not contributing much.

But the series shifted dramatically in the second half, when Vitality fell flat on their T-side, surrendering seven straight rounds to EG to start the half. After Vitality seemingly corrected their course with a trio of T-side rounds right after, EG responded with four important round wins to secure the upset on Inferno, with almost every player contributing a huge play of some sorts in the final stretch.

A massive amount of pressure was put onto Vitality to win their own map pick of Vertigo—not just to win the series, but also to avoid being bounced from the Major with an embarrassing 0-3 record. The French side looked to be in trouble down 5-3 on their T-side. Until ZywOo finally woke up, that is.

Back-to-back double kills with the AWP helped Vitality tie the score at 5-5, and the reigning HLTV player of the year never looked back. Vitality didn’t lose another round during the entire map even after switching sides at halftime. They went a perfect 6/6 on CT rounds in the second half, and ZywOo finished with a server-high 20 kills over just 11 deaths.

EG took their T-side pistol to start Dust II but struggled all half to get past the double-AWP setup of ZywOo and shox. Vitality also got some great production out of their newest name in Kyojin. They looked like they would run away with the first half, but EG rallied with a few late T rounds to reduce to Vitality lead to 10-5 at halftime.

EG won their second pistol of the map, but Vitality fired back in the first gun round thanks to some big kills from shox. EG struggled to keep their economy above water, relying on unlikely and heroic plays to get a few CT rounds. A ZywOo triple pushed Vitality over the finish line, 16-12 on Mirage to take the series 2-1.

Vitality lives to fight another day and will play in the 1-2 pool on Monday, Nov. 1.