Is This The Start Of The Vitality Era?
While it is too soon to call ahead of the Major, I'm taking a look at Vitality's 2025 in situ and giving a little context as to their players strengths.
Preamble
2025 is undoubtedly Vitality’s year in CS2. They look unplayable even at the worst of times, and are starting to brew up historic winstreaks the likes of which are only matched by some of the greatest teams of all time - almost matching Astralis’s best single run in 2018/19, surpassing 2021’s NaVi, and slowly approaching the Liquid season of dominance in 2019.
It’s still too soon to call this their era. The projections look better than other examples (G2, anyone?) due to the general sustainability of their performances, which we will get into a little later. I think it’s important, however, to discuss this right now - while we don’t know for sure, and while they take a few weeks off, letting other teams potentially study their game to match up better upon their return in Melbourne (which I hope to see in person!).
I have an honest confession to make - in the latest episode of The Brain Jar, I made a 90% take that adding ropz to Vitality would not make them meaningfully better. I even specifically cited back to back tournament wins as something that would prove me wrong, since Spinx won Cologne with them. Well, here’s the transparency; I was clearly wrong.
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The Wins So Far
With their only series loss in 2025 being a year-opening 2-0 at the hands of Eternal Fire at BLAST Bounty, Vitality have won three tournaments back to back (Katowice, EPL, BLAST Lisbon).
This isn’t a one sided picture the whole way through, however. In their tournament victories, they have dropped maps here and there - once to FaZe in Katowice, two incidents with MIBR and The MongolZ in EPL, and three in BLAST Lisbon - two in the final against MOUZ and one in the semis versus Spirit.
These losses are often overtimes or close shaves only possible through the tightest margins, as anyone who watched the BLAST Lisbon grand final will tell you. The only one sided map losses were the opening map against MIBR (which is inexplicable and will probably never happen again), and a classic donk-Spirit stomping where Vitality couldn’t put together a Nuke T-side.
A notable detail (although this is unlikely to mean anything once you realise who we are talking about) is that Vitality have yet to play NaVi or G2 in terms of notable top teams. This is through no fault of their own but due to G2 being an embarrassingly bad m0NESY holding zone, and NaVi’s slow crumble as a potential trophy contender. Still, I would like to see these two matchups to fill out the blanks and remove all doubt - while I have absolutely full belief that G2 would get trounced, NaVi might stand a chance with B1ad3 and Aleksib giving it their all to outcall them, even if they are individually worse across the board.
Individual Firepower Made A Reality
ZywOo’s the start of the conversation, but Vitality’s firepower is deep and varied. When only filtering for playoffs (a new HLTV feature!), where Vitality have often made it but not always triumphed, everyone’s rating has improved from 2024 to 2025 so far.
Some of these jumps are ridiculous - ZywOo, tired of watching donk and m0NESY ascend in playoffs, has started to make good on the promise that ZywOo fans have been telling me was true the whole time. It wasn’t - but it clearly is now. Aside from team performances, which we will get into later, Vitality’s individual performance upgrades across the board are certainly helping.
How Sustainable Is apEX’s Form?
I’ve often looked towards apEX as a barometer of Vitality’s ability to perform. He not only plays many non-anchor positions (check out NER0’s database, a treasure trove) but is the IGL and as such it’s rare that he will drop terrible ratings while the team chugs on towards victories. This isn’t something you can say of other IGLs, like Aleksib and karrigan, who are notably poor individually even in their trophy lifts.
Part of his uptick could be correlated with ropz’s entry into the team as an additional voice and smoothing factor. Less conflict within the team, perhaps, and more cohesion. But for Vitality to actually have an era, apEX needs to maintain this individual form even when every team is out to get them and has had time to try and learn their game. This is my most pertinent doubt and I honestly think that if Vitality can either continue winning with apEX dropping a 0.85 rating through an entire event, or he simply showcases >0.95 or thereabouts for the entire year, this will seal the deal for me.
Synergistic Teamplay Improvements
The flashes are popping, the trades are on point, and everyone’s moving as a cohesive unit - you may have heard words to that effect on desks and in casts when Vitality are involved. Let’s take a look at the FTU (Firepower, Teamwork, Utility) stats on HLTV to compare their 2024 to 2025 on LAN.
They’ve improved across the board from what was already impressive overall statistics in 2024, but this graph is a little hard to look at. You could be forgiven for assuming these are small gains across the board and wonder why I’m showing you this - so let’s whip out the percentage comparison and…
Dear God.
Sure, they’ve gotten 5-10% better at opening kills, 4v5 percentages, and trading. These are all great signs of a fantastic team. But their flash assists are twenty-five percent better. This is the secret sauce that the desks have been rightfully discussing - the incredible utility usage difference.
You might remember I made an article on the death of the flashbang in CS2.
CS2: The Death Of The Flashbang
Edit: If you’re coming here from a future YouTube video, I welcome you! If you want to check out a CS2 podcast I am working on, have a look at this, and enjoy!
Well, it’s been over a year since then, and the first team that truly looks like it could take over CS2 has done so in large part through their utilisation of the flashbang and improvements in flash assists per round.
Pandering aside, flash assists on their own won’t get you an era. For reference, Vitality’s flash assist stats now put them on par with G2, and they certainly aren’t having one. The difference is that if you have top tier flash assists and the best distribution of firepower, then no matter where you go and how you go there, you will win. Would you rather be flashing huNter, Snax, and HeavyGod into a site, or apEX, flameZ, and mezii? I know my choice.
Further stat diving gives you the answer as to who’s been improving - it’s not the ropz addition (in isolation - I’m sure there are qualitative changes), but ZywOo has essentially doubled his flash assists per round, as has flameZ. Looks like the wannabe GOAT contender’s path to fleshing out his game has not only involved playoffs performances in the rating but in the flash assists as well!
It makes sense considering the AWPer often throws utility (less sense considering how little he AWPs for an AWPer…) and this was undoubtedly a focus for him and Vitality this year given how much better everyone is playing.
The Deadly Map Pool
I don’t even need to show you any screenshots for this one - you know the drill. Vitality’s map pool is as deep as you can get. 4 in a row on Anubis and Train, 10 in a row on Dust 2 (recently broken by a 11-13 MOUZ victory), 12 in a row on Inferno, barely losing at all on Mirage (literally not having won less than 8 rounds since 2022…), only getting stomped once on Nuke by Spirit, and permabanning one of the most popular maps in Ancient - it’s as crazy as it all sounds.
The Ancient angle is a key factor in map vetos that allows them to get an edge over many of their opponents. Often a common ground map which teams like Spirit and MOUZ would happily play, the Ancient permaban forces other teams onto less comfortable maps. MOUZ would rather play Ancient (having won it 8 times in a row) than Dust 2 or Mirage against Vitality, but the option is never there - instead, you have your choice of the litter from the above terrifying list. This leads to crazy things like The MongolZ “punish picking” Anubis into Vitality and getting demolished on it - looking for any edge in the veto is nearly impossible.
How long will this breadth and depth of map strengths last for Vitality? We lauded NaVi for their strong maps not too long ago, but they failed to keep it together - one could argue this team’s brain trust is not as deeply concentrated and they should collectively continue this perpetual motion machine, but teams are already trying to find edges in the veto and will start focusing on a specific map they think they can beat Vitality on. Not just one map for all opponents, either - I’m sure there’s teams out there who think they could punish pick every single Vitality map because it’s their personal favourites.
The good (or bad, depending on perspective) thing is that even if a team finally finds a weak map, this doesn’t even make Vitality worse - it’s just an attempt to win one map. You can’t win a series on this mentality unless somehow everyone dismantles every map, and that’s unlikely. I think Vitality’s going to keep this up for a little while, especially considering the general “incompleteness” of many teams (more on this later).
An Unfinished Opposition?
Every era discussion has to have the inevitable “they were playing against plumbers” conversation. We aren’t that far gone as to resort to 2012 NiP tier discussions here, but it’s worth considering the current state of the top 8-10.
Let’s do this quickly. Astralis are shitting themselves and cadiaN is not suited for non-AWP calling, VP is plucky but far from trophy lifting tier, Falcons needs to spend several more millions to get their desired roster built, Liquid is pending a potential siuhy injection and a new coach, FaZe lack a cohesive vision with EliGE (and karrigan’s time is fading fast), G2 is full of liabilities and m0NESY wants to get out, The MongolZ still can’t get it together in the pressure matches and neither can Eternal Fire except they’re older and have less excuses, MOUZ is still constructing their future with Brollan (and look pretty good, despite assumptions to the contrary), NaVi are decaying and their individuals are unimpressive at the top, and Spirit have limited breadth beyond donk and sh1ro.
Most of these are a little pedantic even if they are true, but I honestly believe that the best contenders are Spirit and MOUZ; and Spirit can improve with roster moves, while MOUZ still need time to either get better or worse as the playbook becomes Brollan’s own. EF/MongolZ are entering sink or swim mode in the pressure and playoff performances., and the fact that I don’t even consider NaVi, FaZe or G2 as real contenders to Vitality tells you that they need to change something to compete.
This season had people scrambling to get it together in ways either mental or literal with new rosters, and everyone was blindsided by Vitality once they got online. Next season, after the roster moves in response to Vitality, will be a true barometer of whether they are an era defining team.
Projected Season - Concluding And Predicting
Vitality are slated to attend IEM Melbourne and Dallas (skipping PGL events) and ending the season at the Major like everyone else. It’s hard to predict against them for any of these events.
I’m not calling this the Vitality era until they start winning in the next season. They clearly have team dynamics nailed down, with individual firepower distributed across every role and a united understanding of how they want to play CS2. What would speak to me even more than all of this is the resilience to continue winning after a break and after teams have had a chance to gather and respond. Liquid couldn’t do it at the Berlin Major after their iconic streak and it’s probably part of why people, including me, still don’t consider that an era.
My overarching hope is that this pushes CS2 tactically forward, not just individually. You aren’t likely to build a team that purely defeats Vitality on firepower - you’ll need to find the flaws in their game, wherever they may be, and truly plan against them alongside having a rock solid structure of your own.
If you’re reading this in a future where I’ve written this in the middle of the historically agreed upon Vitality era - I see the vision. I’m just being patient because we’ve sung this song a few times now and I need more.
Afterword
Thank you for reading my article to the end! In a world of fast snap decisions on whether we’ve got an era on our hands I found it pertinent to write, both for the present and for posterity. It also involved some surface level stats, which I haven’t included in one of my articles in a little while - maybe more is in the works?
As always, follow my Twitter for the second easiest way to check what I’m thinking on a topic or just to follow my ramblings in general. Linked below is the easiest way - my community Discord, mostly just for topical CS discussions and off-topic The Binding of Isaac talk at the minute.