MOUZ trounce Vitality to win ESL Pro League Season 19

Counter-Strike

May 12, 2024

Daniel Morris

There it is – 32 teams have been whittled down to just one, and we have our ESL Pro League Season 19 champions – MOUZ. In what seemed like a competitive match-up on paper, MOUZ were able to trounce Vitality 3:0 in a series that never really became competitive. Let’s dig into some of the details!

MOUZ go back-to-back

Credit: Helena Kristiansson | © ESL

The big storyline here is that MOUZ have gone back-to-back at ESL Pro League. This team, with frozen in place of Brollan, were victorious at Season 18 last year, and have repeated the impressive feat at Season 19. Coming into the match against an in-form Vitality and a seemingly unstoppable ZywOo, it seemed a tough prospect, but three maps later, and the young guns are on top once again.

The strong performance is the best argument against those who insist MOUZ are playoff chokers. There were no signs of nerves here, no inexperience to speak of. Only a fearless team playing their best CS, proving why they’re one of the best CS2 teams in the world. Once they translate these performances to the bigger stages, they could prove to be an unstoppable force.

The individuals of MOUZ

Credit: ESLCS on X.

The Grand Final of ESL Pro League Season 19 really highlighted the individual firepower of the MOUZ roster. Once again, we saw Brollan have an absurd amount of impact, proving once and for all that his time on NIP did not count. Then you’ve got xertioN, who has had a magnificent performance across the whole tournament, and torzsi and Jimpphat were barely needed, such was the dominance on display here.

We want to just go on to highlight siuhy, here. As IGL, you’d expect his fragging output to naturally be the lowest on the team. But here, that simply wasn’t the case. A 53:34 series against Vitality highlighted what an amazing showing siuhy put on in Malta, and his efforts were rewarded with the official DHL MVP award for the event. Those hyping siuhy up as the next great IGL are eating well tonight.

Where was Vitality?

Credit: ESLCS on X.

Amid the praise for MOUZ, it’s easy to forget what a rough series this was for Vitality. The team have had such an amazing tournament, and each map here looked so out of character for what we’ve seen throughout the rest of ESL Pro League Season 19. Here, mezii had a series to forget, flameZ struggled for impact, and apEX‘s purple patch came to an end. Even ZywOo went negative!

With Vitality getting 9 and 8 rounds on the first and second maps respectively, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was quite a competitive series. Don’t be fooled – it was never this close, with Vitality frequently on the comeback from heavy first-half losses. Now, they need to pick themselves up and prepare for IEM Dallas 2024, which is up next for the team. Let’s see what they can work on in the meantime.