Vitality beat Aurora 3-1 in the grand final of StarSeries Fall 2026 in Barcelona, taking their first title since BLAST Rivals on May 3.
The win closed a season in which the long-standing world number one had gone trophyless amid a loss of form and parental leave for William "mezii" Merriman, who has since returned to the team's usual five-man lineup. Vitality also beat FURIA in the consolidation final earlier the same day, playing six maps across a single afternoon to leave Barcelona with the trophy.
Aurora had beaten Vitality 2-1 a day earlier on the back of strong CT sides on Nuke and Anubis, but could not repeat it in the rematch. "After yesterday, we knew what they would do," Shahar "flameZ" Shushan told James "BanKs" Banks after the match.
How the grand final was won
Anubis went Vitality's way at the second attempt. Aurora had won it 13-7 the previous night; this time Vitality raced to a 9-3 lead, with an eco win in round six turning the half, and mezii closed it on a 2.24 rating before the team finished the job on the T side — a reversal of the 0-8 T half they had posted in the upper-bracket final.
Aurora answered on Inferno, where Ali "Wicadia" Haydar Yalçın held the B site and then beat Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut through Mid and Long on the T side. Vitality clawed back from 5-11 and a flameZ 1v2 put overtime within reach, before Wicadia tripled up to level the series at 1-1.
Mirage, Aurora's second pick, ended 13-4 to Vitality, with ZywOo's decision-making barely contested. On Cache he opened with a 1v2 and added a three-kill out of Mid. Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo, the closest challenger for the MVP award going into the day, managed a 0.81 rating across the series.
ZywOo's 33rd MVP
ZywOo was named the HLTV x 1xBET Most Valuable Player of the event after averaging a 1.50 rating, his highest since winning the award at IEM Krakow earlier in the year and 0.24 clear of the next-best player, Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato on 1.26. He finished top of the tournament leaderboards for ADR (92.2), kills per round (0.89), deaths per round (0.57) and round swing (+6.13%), and rated 1.51 in the grand final.
The award is the 33rd of his career and his 26th at a Big Event, two short of doubling the tally held by Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev. It is also his first MVP of the season.
It feels good and feels [like] a release a bit to have this MVP. I wanted at least one MVP for the second part of the season just to be a bit more confident and to win also a trophy.
ZywOo credited a round of individual conversations the team held after its previous event in Porto, saying the talks removed stress and left the players more confident in each other.
