Team Vitality stop the Global Esports upset with 2-1 victory
Today’s match between EMEA’s Team Vitality and Pacific’s Global Esports felt like an upset waiting to happen. While Team Vitality was the heavy favorite going into the series, the Pacific teams have all been making a competitive push against both the Americas and EMEA regions at VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo.
The lineup of Pacific region upsets first began with Talon Esports victory over Americas MIBR while DRX was able to claw their way to the semifinals in Group Alpha. In Group Omega, Team Secret made a stand against the star-studded lineup of Team Liquid where they now look to continue that strong form against Natus Vincere in the round-of-16. So while Team Vitality entered the series as a strong favorite over Global Esports, nothing was set in stone right before the series.
VALORANT viewers were brought back to reality today as Team Vitality looked leaps and bounds better than Global Esports immediately.
Team Vitality toyed with Global Esports on Split as they quickly tore through Global Esports’ defense side. Team Vitality’s Karel “ Twisten” Ašenbrener was a star in today’s opening series on Jett with a 1.67 Rating and 330 Average Combat Score on Split as Global Esports was held to just a few round wins. After a 9-3 first half, Global Esports was held to just one pistol as Team Vitality closed out map one with 13-4 score.
At this point, the storyline was set for Team Vitality to receive appraisal after a strong 2-0 sweep, but one wholesome Global Esports interview later, that dream was pushed aside. While the first half went towards the side of Team Vitality, Global Esports demonstrated strong fortitude in the second half. Global Esports’ Cahya "Monyet" Nugraha was unstoppable on Astra as he put forth a strong 1.73 Rating in the second half. This helped Global Esports hold Team Vitality to two rounds as they brought the series to a final game-deciding matchup.
.@skrossigg with the collat to win an insane clutch on Pearl!#GEFighting #VCTLOCKIN pic.twitter.com/Gq1k4hTItc
— Global Esports (@GlobalEsportsIn) February 23, 2023
Unfortunately, the reverse sweep was not meant to be for Global Esports as Team Vitality shot up to a quick 9-3 lead on Lotus before closing out the thriller in 13-6 fashion.
Team Vitality will now look to represent EMEA in a strong fashion as they look toward their next matchup against Leviatán in the round-of-16.
That match will begin at 9am PT. You can watch the action unfold on VCT's Twitch and YouTube channels. For the rest of VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo Omega matches, be sure to check out our live updates on the group's set of games.
Sage got his start in esports as a volunteer writer in 2016 for esports organization, Dignitas. Since then, he has continued to work on his craft as a journalist and reporter for a number of established esports publications, such as esports.gg, Unikrn, Akshon Esports, Howla, The Player’s Lobby, Nerd Street Gamers, and most recently Dot Esports. Now, as a member of Esports Illustrated’s content team, Sage’s primary duties are centered around creating groundbreaking written and video content about the esports industry that impacts the community in a meaningful way. Sage graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and Informatics. There, he was a member of the Rutgers Esports Executive Board, both as the head of the fighting game community and a videographer/photographer for the Content team.