Home side Team Vitality win Counter-Strike Paris Major

24 May 2023

French esports organization Team Vitality are flying right now. Just last week, we wrote about their promising new partnership with GG.BET for the development of a prediction game inside the official Vitality app, which came right off the back of impressive victories at IEM Rio 2023 and Pro League Season 16. And now we’re writing about them once again, as the European side has added another prestigious title to its rapidly growing list of accolades: the Blast.tv Paris Major. This win is not only special because it’s their first Major title, but also because it was the last-ever Counter-Strike: Global Offensive world championship as the game will be replaced by Counter-Strike 2 later this year.

Dominant final display

Team Vitality showed good form from the get-go, not losing a single match during the Legends stage. In round 1, German side G2 Esports were beaten 16-13, followed by victories over Finnish organization ENCE (16-13) and Ukrainian team Monte (2-0) in rounds 2 and 3, respectively. This earned Vitality a second place in the overall Legends ranking, just behind Norwegian esports organization Heroic, which meant they directly qualified for the Champions stage

The French team simply continued where they had left off in the Legends stage, comfortably beating British side Into The Breach (ITB) in the quarterfinals, 0-2. They repeated this result in the semifinals against Norwegian team Apeks, which earned them a spot in the Grand Final. There, one of the surprises of the tournament, German organization GamerLegion was waiting. The Paris Major 2023 was only the first-ever Major tournament for the Germans.

The Grand Final got started on Overpass and as had been the case so far in the tournament, Vitality looked the better team from the first minute. The Frenchmen cruised to a relatively easy 16-6 victory, which effectively set them up for a match point in a home game right away. Many will have expected a quick end to the final, but GamerLegion wasn’t ready to throw the towel just yet. By the time half of the second map (Nuke) had been played, the Germans were leading 10-5, but Vitality had saved the best for last. They managed to equalize at 13-13, after which GamerLegion felt done. With an eventual 16-13 victory, Team Vitality crowned themselves Paris Major 2023 winners and CS:GO world champions for the first time in their history.

Half a million in prize money

As one of the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams of the past few years, combined with the fact that the Paris Major 2023 was taking place in their home city, Vitality were one of the favorites for the title and they lived up to those expectations. As a result, they managed to take home no less than $ 500.000 in prize money, while runners-up GamerLegion got $ 170.000. In total, the organization of the Blast.tv Paris Major 2023 had reserved a whopping $ 1.25 million in prize money for the event.