With a championship on the line Sunday, Team Vitality put an end to ENCE’s unbeaten streak and won the grand final of Gamers8 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, prevailing 2-1 to take home the $400,000 first-place prize.
It looked like business as usual early for ENCE, who had swept each opponent through three rounds of the bracket on their way to the final.
ENCE took the first map 16-7 on Anubis, with Spaniard Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia pacing the victory with 23 kills to earn a plus-14 kills-to-deaths ratio.
But Vitality handed ENCE its first loss of the tournament in the second map, Mirage, winning 16-12 to force a final map. France’s Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut was Vitality’s top performer with 28 kills (plus-11).
Vitality then cruised to a 16-9 win on Nuke, thanks in part to a map-high 22 kills from both ZywOo and teammate Lotan “Spinx” Giladi of Israel. Denmark’s Emil “Magisk” Reif contributed 18 kills in finishing plus-5.
ZywOo paced all gamers with 66 kills and a plus-22 K-D ratio. SunPayus led ENCE, scoring 62 kills (plus-17).
The $1 million tournament began with 16 teams. All matches in the single-elimination event were best-of-three.
Gamers8 2023 prize pool:
1st: $400,000 — Team Vitality
2nd: $180,000 — ENCE
3rd-4th: $80,000 — Heroic, G2 Esports
5th-8th: $35,000 — GamerLegion, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, Natus Vincere
9th-16th: $15,000 — Team Falcons, Apeks, Fnatic, Team Liquid, FaZe Clan, 9INE, FURIA Esports, MIBR
–Field Level Media