MOUZ and Team Vitality earned berths in the grand final of the ESL Pro League Season 19 playoffs with wins on Saturday in Saint Julian’s, Malta.
MOUZ, the Group C champion, eliminated Group D champ Complexity Gaming in three maps in one semifinal. In the other, Group B winner Team Vitality also won its match 2-1 over Group A champ Astralis.
Unlike matches up to this point that were best-of-three, Sunday’s title match will be best-of-five.
The $750,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event began with 32 teams broken up into four groups of eight. Group-stage winners advanced to the quarterfinals; runners-up advanced to the Round of 12 as the high seeds; third-place teams advanced to the Round of 16 as the high seeds; and fourth-place teams advanced to the Round of 16 as the low seeds.
The winner earns $170,000 and qualifies for the IEM Cologne 2024 event.
Complexity got the jump on MOUZ with a 13-8 win on Vertigo, but MOUZ responded with victories on Nuke (13-9) and Ancient (13-4).
Dorian “xertioN” Berman of Israel led the winners with 56 kills and a plus-16 kills-deaths differential. Jonathan “EiiGE” Jablonowski of the U.S. paced Complexity with 48 kills, while teammate Hakon “hallzerk” Fjaerli of Norway had a plus-five differential.
Vitality also had to come from behind in their match. Astralis captured Mirage 13-9, but Vitality evened the match with a 16-13 overtime win on Vertigo. They clinched by prevailing 13-8 on Inferno.
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut of France was the star for Vitality, racking up 70 kills and a plus-26 kills-deaths differential. Nicolai “device” Reedtz of the all-Denmark lineup had 53 kills and a plus-11 differential.
ESL Pro League Season 19 prize pool:
1. $170,000, 2,000 BLAST Premier points — TBD
2. $80,000, 1,400 points — TBD
3-4. $45,000, 750 points — Complexity Gaming, Astralis
5-8. $32,000, 275 points — G2 Esports, Virtus.pro, Team Liquid, FaZe Clan
9-12. $23,500 — 3DMAX, The MongolZ, FlyQuest, Natus Vincere
13-16. $17,500 — BIG, GamerLegion, BetBoom Team, Monte
17-20. $12,000 — SAW, M80, FURIA Esports, Ninjas in Pyjamas
21-28. $7,000 — Fnatic, Eternal Fire, Team Falcons, TYLOO, FORZE Esports, ENCE, Pera Esports, HEROIC
29-32. $3,500 — Imperial Esports, Sharks Esports, Bad News Kangaroos, BOSS
–Field Level Media