Closing out the year with a bang, French organization Team Vitality has walked away as EPICENTER 2019’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive champions after an intense six-day tournament.
With a prize pool of $500,000 up for grabs, a number of the world’s best Counter-Strike teams descended upon Moscow, Russia on December 17 to partake in the EPICENTER 2019 tournament.
One of the final competitions of the calendar year, the initial group stages featured the likes of North America’s Evil Geniuses, and hometown challengers in the Russian forZe lineup. With the Grand Finals now settled, here are the full results from EPICENTER 2019.
Dropping a mere two maps throughout the entire six-day tournament, Team Vitality were crowned champions on December 22 after toppling the veteran European roster of mousesports.
While mouz claimed a narrow 19-16 overtime victory on Inferno to open the explosive series, Vitality reversed the momentum and claimed back to back wins on Mirage and Nuke, 16-12 and 16-9 respectively.
Marking the organizations second premier tournament championship of the year after besting FURIA Esports on June 9 at the Esports Championship Series Season 7 Finals, the predominantly French roster has rounded out 2019 with its biggest prize of the year at $250,000 for first place.
🏆 #EPICENTER2019 CHAMPIONS 🏆There is no better way to end 2019 and to prepare 2020! #VforVictory pic.twitter.com/uJVr5ZP9QI
— Team Vitality 🐝 (@TeamVitality) December 22, 2019
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Predominantly a showcase for European talent, the end of year event saw the likes of Ukraine based organization Natus Vincere squaring off with the full Danish squad under the Heroic banners.
Failing to make it out of the group stages of play, Chinese roster EHOME and Russian organization Virtus.pro will be looking to rebound in the new year after dropping all of their respective maps throughout EPICENTER 2019.
The complete results for EPICENTER 2019 can be seen below as the conclusion of the Russian event marks the final competition of the year for many Counter-Strike rosters.
| Final Placing | Team | Prize Money (USD) |
| 1 | Team Vitality | $250,000 |
| 2 | mousesports | $120,000 |
| 3-4 | Heroic | $40,000 |
| 3-4 | Evil Geniuses | $40,000 |
| 5-6 | forZe | $15,000 |
| 5-6 | Natus Vincere | $15,000 |
| 7-8 | EHOME | $10,000 |
| 7-8 | Virtus.pro | $10,000 |
Rosters around the world will be looking to take a short break following the conclusion of the final significant event of 2019.
While the next landmark competition in the BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 Regular Season will not be kicking off until January 31, teams will still be hard at work behind the scenes practicing for another busy year of regular tournaments to come.
