ZywOo was crowned the MVP of the tournament after a massive performance
Vitality won the IEM Rio 2023 after defeating Heroic by 2x0 in the Jeunesse Arena, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is the first S-Tier tournament that this line-up won since ESL Pro League Season 16, in October of 2022.
The French squad counted on Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut and Lotan "Spinx" Giladi's giant performances to conquer the first tournament of the Intel Grand Slam Season 5. The two players topped the leaderboards of IEM Rio not only in the Grand Final but throughout the tournament.
Vitality was almost eliminated from IEM Rio
Despite being superior in the BO3 against Heroic, Vitality almost didn't reach the Grand Final. In the Semifinals, they faced Cloud9 which opened the scoreboard by winning the first map. Things were going south in the second one also, with the Russian squad leading by a 12x3 difference.
With a boost from the crowd and the experience of Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen, Vitality brought a massive performance and took the game to overtime (OT). The French squad only needed one OT to complete the comeback and take the game to the 3rd map, where ZywOo didn't give a chance to Cloud9.
Heroic is consistent, but lack trophies
Heroic probably is the most consistent team in the world this last year, but still, they are not able to finish the job and conquer trophies. The Danes reached the finals of the last three IEM events but didn't win any of them.
Rio de Janeiro became a place where they always goes from heaven to hell. IEM Rio 2023 showed the same story as the Major last year. In both cases, they were able to win against the home favorites, FURIA, and reach finals, but choked at the biggest match of the tournaments.
Heroic's In-Game Leader, Casper "cadiaN" Møller, once more, became one of the most curious characters of the tournament. The AWPer went toe to toe with FURIA, won the match, and provoked the crowd during the game, but still managed to bring the support of some Brazilians during the finals.
Vitality and Heroic built momentum for Paris Major
IEM Rio 2023 happened during a busy calendar and some teams, such as G2 and Liquid, chose not to participate because of that. Still, for Heroic and Vitality, which played well throughout the tournament and reached the finals, IEM Rio helped build momentum for them going forward to BLAST.tv Paris Major.
Both teams never won a Major during the CS:GO and will have their final chances in the tournament that happens in May.
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