Vitality holds on against MOUZ to Win BLAST Open Spring 2025

The Vitality era may have just began in Lisbon. After a banger five-map final, Team Vitality has claimed the BLAST Open Spring 2025 trophy over MOUZ 3-2. This hard-fought win marks Vitality’s third trophy in a row, framing them as the uncontested best Counter-Strike 2 team in the world.

Map one was Vitality’s pick of Inferno. Prior to today, they had won their last nine Inferno games in a row. This wouldn’t be any different, but no one expected how one-sided the map would be. Vitality stomped MOUZ flat, sweeping them 12-0 on the T side before closing out a perfect 13-0, the very first in a grand finals in CS2.

If that display was any indication, this Grand Final would surely be a quick and easy one for the best team in the world. However, MOUZ showed incredible composure on maps two and three. On Mirage, they executed an impressive attack to go up 9-3 at the half. Despite a resurgence from Vitality, MOUZ held on for a 13-11 equalizer. Lotan “Spinx” Giladi played out of his mind on the map, going 26-14 with 132.1 ADR against his former team.

Then on the DM heavy Dust2, MOUZ surpassed all expectations. This map should have been home ground for the star-studded Vitality, yet MOUZ went pound for pound with them the entire way. In the end, MOUZ once again overcame Matthieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and co. for another narrow 13-11 map victory. Unlike the previous map which was the Spinx show, all of MOUZ showed up big for this win, putting them on championship point.

Bend, Don’t Break

With their backs against the wall, Vitality entered MOUZ’s turf of Nuke. Recently, MOUZ has been amazing on the map, beating every team on it except for Vitality. The favorites would need to channel that result once more to push the series to a tiebreaker. Of course, having ZywOo put up 21 kills, over 120 ADR, and a 1.80 HLTV rating can push any team over their obstacles.  A clean 13-7 win got Vitality up to even, sending us through to the unknown that is Train.

It doesn’t get more exciting than a five-map Grand Final where the decider is a brand new map. Both squads had only played Train in three officials since its release, leaving the possibilities wide open. The play in the server reflected that, as the teams fought back and forth for early control. It was Vitality who took a close 7-5 lead at the half, but it was still anyone’s game.

The final pistol of the day went to MOUZ. They were on track to tie the game, until a second round force buy saw Vitality knock the underdogs down a peg. After that huge momentum swing, Vitality ran away with the game. MOUZ could only watch as the Hornets swept through all but one remaining round, ending the match with a 13-7 victory.

YOUR BLAST OPEN LISBON CHAMPIONS, @TEAMVITALITYCS 🏆🐝#BLASTPremier pic.twitter.com/EnkqsVnGns

— BLAST Premier 💥 (@BLASTPremier) March 30, 2025

The Best in the World

Though this was a five-map series, Vitality won each of their games lopsidedly while MOUZ could only sneak maps over the line by one round. That’s not a indictment of MOUZ of course, they played phenomenally and should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. It just means that Vitality is an incredibly difficult team to even think about beating right now. Just one mistake on Mirage or Dust2 could have ended this Grand Final prematurely.

For now, Vitality are the best team CS2 has to offer. Their mix of insane firepower, oppressive clutch potential, and endless composure from Dan “apEX” Madesclaire at the helm makes Vitality a true beast. We could be witnessing the start of CS2’s first true era, though that still remains to be seen. As apEX himself put it, “Only God knows.”