Inner Circle sends Vitality to BLAST Porto lower bracket

Inner Circle sent Vitality to the lower bracket in Group B at BLAST Open Porto after a 2-0 victory on Anubis (13-8) and Cache (16-13). Vitality competed with stand-in Justinas ‘jL’ Lekavicius in place of William ‘mezii’ Merriman.

Inner Circle opened on their Anubis pick and built a 7-1 lead on the attack. Vitality reduced the gap to two rounds at the half, but Inner Circle won five of the first six rounds after the switch to reach map point and closed Anubis 13-8. Arseniy ‘cptkurtka023’ Derevinskiy finished the map with a 1.64 rating and executed a 1v2 retake during the map.

On Cache, Vitality led early on the attack before Inner Circle responded with a six-round streak to level the half. Vitality then won six of seven CT rounds to reach map point, but Inner Circle fought back to force overtime at 12-12. In extra time, two quick entries by Eduard ‘zeRRoFIX’ Petrovskyi on the A site put Inner Circle ahead, and the team closed the map 16-13.

Derevinskiy topped the series with a 1.58 rating. Daniil ‘headtr1ck’ Valitov posted a 1.37 series rating and David ‘Dawy’ Bibik had a 1.07. ZeRRoFIX recorded a 0.78 rating on Cache but delivered the opening plays in overtime. Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut started Anubis 0-7 and finished with a 0.78 series rating, one of his lowest in CS2. Vitality’s lineup also featured Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire, Robin ‘ropz’ Kool and Shahar ‘flameZ’ Shushan.

The win advances Inner Circle in the upper bracket of Group B. Vitality drops to the lower bracket and must win further matches to stay in the tournament. jL’s stand-in role for mezii will continue after Porto, with jL also set to substitute for apEX at PGL Masters Bucharest.

After the match, Arseniy ‘cptkurtka023’ Derevinskiy described the performance as ‘It was our prime game.’