The French team made a clean sweep to win the final IEM event of the year.
After a long journey through the group stages and the playoffs, the winner of the Intel Extreme Masters XVI- Winter was decided in a Bo5 match that saw another Sweden versus France showdown in recent weeks.
The grand finals saw Team Vitality fighting against Ninjas in Pyjamas in a no-holds-barred playoff to win the title at the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI Winter event in Stockholm.
The match started with Inferno, where both teams were at par as the first half ended. Team Vitality however rose to the challenge and demolished NiP in the second half, giving them an easy 16-10 win. In Dust 2, NiP was leading the map by the end of the first half, but Vitality eked out a win as they managed to grab a win from behind, collecting enough points to win 16-10 again.
In the last map, Nuke, Team Vitality played a consistent game that even with NiP trying their best to catch up to the French team, ultimately Team Vitality won the map 16-13.
Team Vitality won the $100,000 grand prize as well as 1,000 Pro Tour points, while NiP walked away with $42,000 and 750 points as runner up.
Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut was the star for Team Vitality, with his 70 kills and a plus 28 K/D difference that he scored during the grand finale. His teammates Richard "shox" Papillon (66 kills, plus-24) and Dan "apEX" Madesclaire (59 kills, plus-13) also contributed to his success.
“It was pretty comfortable. We definitely felt like we could take it…When we are playing like this we know we can beat any team” - Richard “shox” Papillon
With the win, Team Vitality joins G2 Esports, Natus Vincere, Team Liquid, Virtus.pro, Gambit Esports, Heroic, and Furia as one of the first teams to be listed in the lineup for the upcoming IEM Katowice in February of 2022.
