Powered by a red-hot Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, Vitality became the champions of EPICENTER after beating mousesports in a three-map series.

Vitality have finished off their 2019 run with their first title since replacing Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt with Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon in September, concluding the year on a high note following a largely underwhelming period with their newest player. The Frenchmen denied mousesports a fourth consecutive title, as the European side finish off the year with a runner-up finish.

The title decider began with Vitality getting off the line first on Inferno, picking up a 5-1 lead on the T side, with Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin denying mousesports an eco victory with a 1v2 clutch along the way. The lead didn't last long, though, as the European mixture came back with six in a row on the back of a couple of multikills from Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool, setting up a one-round lead before going over to the second half.

Vitality hoist their first trophy with shox

There, the Frenchmen once again won the pistol round with a defuse in a 2v2 situation on B before the two teams started going back and forth, as clutches went both ways, courtesy of David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský and ZywOo.

It looked like Vitality won the battle when they pulled away at 14-11, but mousesports held on, in part thanks to a 2v5 victory starring Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong and ropz, taking the opening map to overtime. There, the Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led team put in a perfect offense thanks to more heroics from ropz and Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker and finished off the map at 19-16.

Vitality won their third pistol round of the series at the beginning of Mirage with another defuse in smoke, this time by ALEX in a 1v2, while the first gunrounds went the way of mousesports. A halfbuy win swung things back in the French team's favor, but with a Deagle buy and an unbelievable 1v3 AWP clutch from frozen the tide turned again as mouz switched over to the defense with a one-round advantage.

mousesports end the year just short of a fourth consecutive title

karrigan's quad-kill in the second pistol round gave way for a 12-8 lead as mousesports had their eyes on the prize, but there was still life left in Vitality, who went on a dominant streak once they won a close scenario on the B bombsite and never let go, forcing the deciding map at 16-12.

Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy opened up Nuke with a quad-kill and a 1v2 clutch and with shox adding a 1v1 of his own to save a hairy antiforce, Vitality set themselves up for a dominant defense. Things looked dire for mousesports at 1-10 and even though they gave themselves a chance with the last four rounds, a fifth pistol round loss in the series put them in a difficult situation.

Winning the forcebuy war, as well, Vitality reached 14 rounds and went on to deny mousesports a real comeback attempt, in large part thanks to a 1v1 clutch from ALEX in a halfbuy scenario, which led to a 16-9 victory on the deciding map and a 2-1 win in the series.

EPICENTER 2019 Best of 3 Vitality Matchpage 2 1 mousesports 16 Inferno 19 16 Mirage 12 16 Nuke 9

EPICENTER 2019 final standings: