Team Vitality starts fast, has to rally to top MOUZ in BLAST Open Spring grand final

Team Vitality rallied by winning the final two maps to defeat MOUZ 3-2 on Sunday in the grand final of the BLAST Open Spring in Lisbon, Portugal.

Vitality earned the $150,000 prize by capturing the best-of-five match, while MOUZ collected $60,000.

After dominating MOUZ 13-0 on Interno, Vitality fell behind with 13-11 losses on both Mirage and Dust II. However, Vitality responded with back-to-back 13-7 decisions on Nuke and Train.

Mathieu "Zyw0o" Herbaut of France led Vitality with the top performance of the day, a plus-28 kill-death differential (83-55). Teammate Robin "ropz" Kool of Estonia contributed a plus-14 (67 kills) and Shara "flameZ" Shushan of Isreal also had a positive rating of plus-5 (66-61 K-D).

MOUZ was led by Lotan "Spinx" Giladi of Israel with a plus-12 (74 kills), and teammate Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo of Finland also was in the positive number with a plus-7 (62 kills).

The clash on Sunday was a rematch of the Group A upper-bracket final, won by Vitality 2-0 in a best-of-three in the tournament's 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.

BLAST Open Spring prize pool

1. $150,000 -- Team Vitality

2. $60,000 -- MOUZ

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