Vitality Beat Aurora Three One in Barcelona to Win StarSeries Fall for Their First Trophy Since May
Mathieu Herbaut was named the event's most valuable player after a 71 kill grand final, a day after Aurora had beaten Vitality in the upper final.
Vitality beat Aurora 3-1 in the best-of-five grand final of StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2026 in Barcelona on 20 September 2026, winning their first trophy since May.
The French organisation had to do it the long way. Aurora beat them 2-1 in the upper bracket final on 19 September, when Vitality won only six terrorist side rounds across three maps. Vitality then beat FURIA 2-0 in the lower bracket final on Sunday, taking Cache 13-5 and Anubis 13-8, before returning for the grand final later the same afternoon.
Vitality opened the decider with a 13-4 win on Anubis. Aurora levelled by taking Inferno 13-11, but Vitality won Mirage 13-4 and then closed out the series on Cache. Shahar "flameZ" Shushan said the team knew what Aurora would do after losing to them the previous day.
Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut finished the grand final with 71 kills against 44 deaths for a 1.51 rating and was named the event's most valuable player. He averaged a 1.50 rating across the tournament, 0.24 clear of FURIA's Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato. Robin "ropz" Kool added 61 kills in the final, while Wicadia led Aurora with 63.
The eight team event in Barcelona had a prize pool of 500,000 US dollars, with 200,000 dollars going to the champions. Aurora, whose Turkish-majority lineup had played only five events together, reached their first final with the new roster.