Vitality Win ESL Pro League for a Fourth Time: 3-0 Over MOUZ in Katowice, ZywOo MVP

Team Vitality beat MOUZ 3-0 in the ESL Pro League Season 24 grand final in Katowice on Sunday, 11 October, and became the first team to win the event four times. The score hides a closer match: Cache finished 13-8, Inferno 13-7 and Dust2 needed overtime, 16-12. ZywOo took MVP with a 1.73 K/D over the event. Here is how the three maps went, how Vitality got through the bracket, and what the numbers say before the Major in Singapore.

The final: three maps and one overtime

Vitality removed Ancient, MOUZ removed Anubis, and the picks followed in turn: Cache (Vitality), Inferno (MOUZ), Dust2 (Vitality), with Mirage as MOUZ's second pick and Nuke as the decider. Neither Mirage nor Nuke was played.

Map two is the one to remember. MOUZ chose Inferno and lost it 13-7 after Vitality opened 9-3. Dust2 went the other way. Vitality took the first half 7-5, MOUZ took the second 7-5, and the map stood at 12-12 after 24 rounds. In overtime Vitality won all four rounds. HLTV flags two highlights from the series: flameZ's four kills (two with the MP9, two with the Galil) on the B-site defence in round 3 of Inferno, and xertioN's four AK kills, three of them headshots, in round 18 of Dust2.

The road to the trophy: three 2-1 series

Vitality went through the group stage unbeaten, beating 1win 2-0, NAVI 2-1 and Falcons 2-1. In the playoffs they beat PARIVISION 2-0 in the quarter-final, Aurora 2-1 in the semi-final and MOUZ 3-0 in the final. Their map record for the whole event was 13-3, and all three lost maps came in series against NAVI, Falcons and Aurora, which Vitality still won.

The other half of the bracket went like this: Spirit beat Falcons 2-0, MOUZ beat FURIA 2-0, and MOUZ edged Spirit 2-1 in the semi-final. Aurora took third place with a 2-0 win over Spirit. That means Falcons, with m0NESY and NiKo, were out in the quarter-finals. No Polish team was in the field, which is a small shame for a tournament played in Katowice.

The numbers: three Vitality players at the top

HLTV's event table has Vitality players in the first three places. ZywOo finished on a 1.44 Rating 3.0 with a 1.73 K/D and a +114 kill difference over 16 maps, followed by ropz (1.31, 1.42 K/D, +69) and flameZ (1.30, 1.19 K/D, +37). Next came m0NESY of Falcons (1.28), Wicadia of Aurora (1.23), donk of Spirit and Spinx of MOUZ (both 1.22) and NiKo (1.21). With HLTV's filter for matches against top-20 teams, ZywOo's rating drops to 1.39 and his K/D to 1.61, which are still the highest figures of the tournament.

The winning five were mezii, apEX, ropz, ZywOo and flameZ.

The winners' settings, read from the final's demo

Our CS2 crosshair database holds the configs of all five Vitality players, read from the demo of the final against MOUZ. Everyone plays at 400 DPI, and beyond that they differ more than you would expect from a team that wins everything. ZywOo, flameZ and apEX play 4:3 stretched to fill the screen, while ropz and mezii use native 1920x1080. flameZ has the highest sensitivity (3.0, eDPI 1200) and ropz the lowest (1.77, eDPI 708). Viewmodel FOV is 68 for everyone except apEX, who runs 60.

The crosshairs differ too: ZywOo plays a cyan one, ropz a green one and apEX a semi-transparent yellow (alpha 197 out of 255). flameZ is the only one of the five with a centre dot. You will find full codes and configs on the players' pages, and if you want to carry something from their setups into your own, start with our CS2 settings guide. The table tells you one thing: there is no single "winning" config, with three of the five on 4:3 and two on 16:9.

What it means ahead of the Major

By the club's count this is Vitality's seventh title of 2026, and their earlier ESL Pro League wins came in seasons 16, 21 and 22. MOUZ arrived at the final as number 1 in the VRS ranking and number 3 in HLTV's, while Vitality sat second in both, and MOUZ did not win a map. Rankings describe a whole season. A final comes down to individual rounds, and in Katowice one team kept winning them.

The next big stop is the PGL Major in Singapore, whose Stage 1 starts on 24 November according to HLTV.

In our view 3-0 overstates the gap between the finalists. Dust2 went to overtime, and MOUZ won its second half. Vitality did not dominate this final, they closed it out better, and that line fits the whole tournament: three 2-1 series, three lost maps and not a single lost series.

ZywOo is the main reason they close. A 1.73 K/D over 16 maps, and a 1.44 rating against 1.28 for the best player outside Vitality, is a margin that one good match cannot explain. Three players from one team on top of the table also says something about the rest of the roster, so we do not read this title as a fluke.

Going into Singapore, we still see Vitality as the favourite, with MOUZ the closest challenger. Falcons going out in the quarter-finals shows that names on a roster are not enough without a stable team around them. Watching the Major, the thing to look for is which side can win a series after dropping a map, and the rankings tell you less about that.