Team Vitality, MOUZ to battle in BLAST Open Spring grand final

Team Vitality and MOUZ advanced to the grand final with victories on Saturday in the semifinals of the BLAST Open Spring at Lisbon, Portugal.

The clash on Sunday will be a rematch of the Group A upper-bracket final, won by Vitality 2-0 in the tournament's opening stage on March 24.

Vitality defeated Team Spirit 2-1 in Saturday's semifinal playoffs, while MOUZ posted a 2-0 sweep of Eternal Fire, which had won the Group B upper-bracket final opening stage on March 24.

The $400,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event began with the 16 teams divided into two groups for double-elimination play. All group-stage matches were best-of-three.

In the single-elimination playoffs, all matches are best-of-three until the grand final, which will be best-of-five. The team that wins the Sunday final will pocket $150,000.

On Saturday, Team Vitality topped Team Spirit 13-6 on Anubis, then fell 13-6 on Nuke before emerging with a 13-10 win on Mirage. Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut of France was the only player for Vitality with a plus kill-death differential (plus-12 with 53 kills). Spirit was led by Russians Danil "donk" Kryshkovets with a plus-20 (56 kills) and Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov with a plus-11 differential (46 kills).

MOUZ knocked off Eternal Fire in a tight battle, 13-11 on Nuke and 13-10 on Dust II. Adam "torzi" Torzsas of Hungary led MOUZ with a plus-17 K-D differential (40 kills) and Lotan "Spinx" Giladi of Israel had a plus-7 (36 kills).

Ozgur "woxic" Eker of the all-Turkish Eternal Fire was the lone player with a plus differential at plus-7 (37 kills).

BLAST Open Spring prize pool

1. $150,000

2. $60,000

3-4. $40,000 -- Team Spirit, Eternal Fire

5-6. $20,000 -- Natus Vincere, G2 Esports

7-8. $10,000 -- Virtus.pro, The MongolZ

9-12. $7,500 -- Team Falcons, FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, M80

13-16. $5,000 -- The Huns Esports, Astralis, Imperial Esports, FURIA

--Field Level Media