In Saturday's match at the BLAST Premier World, Team Gambit managed to pull off a task that has remained impregnable for them all year: defeating Vitality to advance to the grand finals of a major tournament. Gambit had suffered three consecutive defeats to the French team recently, but managed to break the streak just at the moment when it mattered most.
The match started with the draw of Vertigo – card, a card on which Gambit had been performing well during 2021. The fight was almost equal: one team or the other was ahead by several points, until at the end the Russian team managed to intercept the advantage and finish the card draw with the score 16 – 13. Although Matthew «ZywOo» Erbo posted a 1.55 rating in this part of the match, it was not enough to lead the team to victory – due in part to the poor play of Jason «Kyojin» Nguyen Van, who managed only six frags in the entire time the map was played.
Vitality chose Dust2 – as its second map, a map on which it has been consistently successful. Gambit took the lead several times, but Vitality found opportunities to resist each time. The French team was able to score 15 points first, but Gambit scored three straight rounds and took the match into overtime. In the end, this map also remained for cybersportsmen from CIS with the score 19 – 17. Gambit will now face the winner of the NAVI – Vitality match in the grand finals, the outcome of which will be decided on Sunday afternoon.