Opinion: No, the Vitality Era is Not “Over”

As Falcons converted map point on Dust 2 against Vitality at the IEM Cologne 2026 Major, Vitality knew that their dream of a historic threepeat was over.

As is usual for the esports space, Vitality’s defeat has been received by fans with measured and nuanced perspectives across the Counter-Strike landscape.

I’m joking, of course. Vitality’s defeat has triggered a litany of posts proclaiming the EM Cologne 2026 Major exit as the end, or the beginning of the end, of Vitality’s era of dominance in Counter-Strike.

Despite losing 2-1, losing both Anubis and Dust 2 in the final rounds of regulation, it seems some believe that the best Counter-Strike roster ever assembled is past its best. I very much doubt it.

Vitality and Astralis share divergent fates, but that does not undermine Vitality’s season

It is ironic that Vitality’s run at IEM Cologne was so intrinsically linked to Astralis’ StarLadder 2019 Berlin success. Astralis threepeat came in Berlin, but Vitality’s context going into the event could not have been further from Astralis’.

In Vitality’s case, they came into the IEM Cologne 2026 Major as unequivocal favorites after capturing their second ESL Grand Slam in a row at IEM Rio.

Vitality’s season was largely a reassertion of the dominance of the first half of 2025, with little or no resistance in their way for the most part, as they won IEM Kraków, PGL Cluj-Napoca, BLAST Open Rotterdam, IEM Rio, and BLAST Fort Worth.

Their only blip after Kraków came at IEM Atlanta, where NAVI finally managed to overcome Vitality after event exit after exit at the hands of the French organization. Vitality had openly discussed not practising for the event, or BLAST Fort Worth, before it, which they still won.

PGL Astana gave fans hope that Falcons and Spirit could compete with Vitality at the major, but Vitality prioritized rest and Major preparation over the event. Coming into the Major, Vitality had not lost a tournament that they truly cared about as a roster.

By contrast, Astralis were not the best team in the world coming into the StarLadder Berlin 2026 Major. Liquid undoubtedly was the form team, having guaranteed the Grand Slam in only 63 days.

Of course, Astralis won that Major, and Vitality will not win Cologne. They therefore stand as contrasting, almost directly opposite runs despite their similarities in posterity, but the narratives also contrast due to those circumstances.

In 2019, if Astralis had lost, especially to Liquid, there would have been little doubt that their era was over. Liquid had been the best team of that season, and a Major would have cemented them as the best team in the world.

Vitality’s competition is undoubtedly closer

For Vitality, their worst result this year is a quarter-final exit. In both occasions, against NAVI in Atlanta and Falcons in Cologne, both matches were exceedingly close. Vitality arguably should have closed the series against NAVI on Anubis and lost crucial force buys against Falcons to fall out of the Major.

On neither occasion were they showing their best Counter-Strike, but they were still capable of competing with the best of their competition, in Falcons’ case, until the very last round on each map.

Vitality and Falcons played out a series of small details and clutch moments, which Falcons got overall the better of throughout the incredibly tight series, in part because of the outstanding individual performance of Maksim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin, and in part because they are finding that connective tissue under Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen on the T-sides.

For Vitality, their match-ups have rarely been stretched to the point where those moments matter. They have shown such complete dominance at their best that they could vanquish their opponents without facing that level of strain, but when they have had to players like Robin ‘ropz’ Kool and Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut have stepped up.

Vitality lacked that flair at the Major, but most of all, they lacked that complete connective tissue that has bound this roster at its best. They looked sluggish, slow to react, and relatively static in comparison to their usual level.

Vitality, as we know them, never arrived in Cologne from Stage 3 to their elimination, something typified by the amount of low buy or eco rounds Falcons found against a team famous for winning those rounds themselves.