French Vitality won the grand final of the IEM Winter tournament, beating NIP with a score of 3 – 0 and thus winning his first major title in 2021. Commenting on the result of the match, one of the Vitality players Dan “apEX” Madescler emphasized the special significance of this victory: “This is our first trophy of 2021, and we had to spend a lot of effort to achieve it. Our third final of the year, our first joint victory in the LAN format, and this is really important. I’m truly happy for the team, for all the work we’ve done together over a long time.”
In addition, having won IEM Winter 2021, Vitality enters the fight in the next season of Intel Grand Slam. This competition, with a prize pool of $1,000,00, was created to determine the best of the best, and in previous seasons Astralis, Liquid and Natus Vincere have each won the top prize once. This time the rules have been slightly adjusted: now the team needs to win three ESL Pro Tour Masters tournaments and one of the major championships (competitions in Katowice, Cologne or one of the majors organized by ESL). Thus, the next tournament, the result of which will be taken into account in the fight for the Intel Grand Slam, will be IEM Katowice, scheduled for mid-February 2022.
