Vitality defeats Natus Vincere to win BLAST Rivals 2026
Team Vitality beat Natus Vincere in a best-of-5 Grand Final to claim the BLAST Rivals 2026 title.
Vitality defeated Natus Vincere 3-0 in the BLAST Rivals Season 1 grand final in Fort Worth, Texas, winning on Nuke, Anubis and Dust2 to claim their fifth consecutive BLAST Rivals title.
Natus Vincere opened Nuke with an 11-0 lead. Vitality recovered in the second half, forced overtime and won after a sequence of decisive 1v1 clutches. Robin “ropz” Kool, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and William “mezii” Merriman won key duels as Vitality closed out the map.
On Anubis, NAVI led 11-9 before Vitality took the final four rounds to win 13-11. Dust2 was more one-sided: Vitality secured the map and the series without allowing NAVI to mount a late challenge.
Individual statistics highlighted Vitality’s performance. Ropz finished with a tournament-best Rating 3.0 of 1.55 and won seven clutch rounds across the three maps. ZywOo posted a 1.29 rating, Shahar “flameZ” Shushan a 1.28 and mezii a 1.24. Dan “apEX” Madesclaire recorded a 0.81 rating. For Natus Vincere, Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov led the team with a 1.07 rating while Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen finished at 0.66.
The victory extended Vitality’s streaks in playoff play. The team has won 27 playoff maps in a row and 15 grand final maps in a row in 2026. Natus Vincere have not beaten Vitality in 12 straight maps, a run stretching back to the IEM Cologne 2024 final. Vitality have won every BLAST event they attended this season except the BLAST Bounty curtain-raiser.
On stage after the match, apEX explained he picked Nuke because he “knew what they would do” on T side. Vitality will next compete at IEM Atlanta. Natus Vincere leave Fort Worth without a map win in the final and will prepare for upcoming events.
Final results:
- 1st place: Vitality – $250,000
- 2nd place: NAVI – $200,000
- 3rd-4th place: GamerLegion, FaZe – $130,000
- 5th-6th place: Astralis, G2 – $85,000
- 7th-8th place: FURIA, FUT – $60,000
BLAST Rivals 2026 featured a field of leading Counter-Strike teams and served as one of the final high-profile events before the upcoming Major. The tournament win is added to Vitality’s season record and provides the roster further experience in long-format matches ahead of the Major.
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