Vitality beats Heroic 2:0 and wins ESL IEM Rio

Vitality beats Heroic 2:0 and wins ESL IEM Rio

24. April 2023 by Andrew Williams

Vitality defeated Heroic at the Jeunesse Arena in the Grand Finals of IEM Rio 2023 to win the main $250,000 share. The Series went back and forth, but finally Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut convinced with his performance and got the win for his team after two maps. At the same time, the French superstar earned his 14th MVP medal after they were able to beat Heroic.

Vitality wins IEM Rio 2023

The spectacle started on Vitality’s pick, Vertigo, and both teams gave it their all, but Vitality had a slight advantage in the first half on the T-side, 8-7. After the turn, they maintained their strong performance, thanks in part to a strong 4K with ZywOo’s Glock on the Bombsite. With 16:13 the map went to Vitality.

The strength of the French team did not diminish on Inferno either. Here they were even more dominant on the CT side in the first half and managed to get as many as 10 rounds by the change this time.

Heroic struggled on their own pick, but thanks to Casper ‘cadiaN’ MĆøller’s 4K on AK, they were able to hold against Vitality. Heroic then fought for every round in the second half to take the Map into Overtime and the Series to the third Map. They were able to get 7 rounds, but it wasn’t enough to make up for Vitality’s lead and with a score of 16-12, Vitality ended up winning the Grand Final!

ZywOo becomes MVP of the IEM Rio again

ZywOo has received the HLTV x 1xBet MVP award for IEM Rio after Vitality’s 2-0 win over Heroic in the Grand Final. With an average rating of 1.31 on 15 maps, ZywOo was a crucial factor for his team throughout the tournament. He posted a 1.00+ rating on every map he played – eight of them with a 1.30+ rating – and was always there when it mattered most in Vitality’s lower bracket run and subsequent playoff games.

His best overall series was against MIBR, where he had an average rating of 1.61 on two maps, while his most effective map came in the Group B Lower Bracket finals against OG, where he posted an absurd 2.31 rating on Inferno (1.57 KPR, 2.29 Impact, 155.8 ADR). ZywOo has often been the sole driving force behind Vitality’s victories, but that wasn’t the case in this tournament: Lotan “Spinx” Giladi also showed great form during the tournament (1.25 Event Rating) and was awarded MVP in second place, while Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen and Emil “Magisk” Reif also had their moments (1.12 ratings).