Vitality joined the list of teams that passed the IEM Cologne play-in and made it to the group stage. The French team beat Sprout on three maps, winning by a very small margin.
The first map chosen was Sprout Vertigo. In the early rounds, Sprout was effective, scoring six points in a row, but gradually Vitality managed to even the score and gain a slight advantage. The team increased the pressure, and as a result, the fate of this map was decided in overtime. Sprout was able to leave her behind with a score of 22 – 20 largely thanks to the efforts of Victor “Staehr” Stehra.
However, Sprout failed to maintain and develop this success. Having lost several rounds on Dust2, Vitality took the lead and achieved an advantage of 10 – 5. Despite the fact that Sprout later closed the gap, the map remained with Vitality with a score of 11 – 16. Thus, the outcome of the match depended on the outcome of Overpass, and Sprout again did not have enough level to maintain control throughout the map. Vitality won it with almost the same score (10 - 16) and advanced to the next stage. The most productive players of the French team in this match were Emil “Magisk” Rife and Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen.
