Faze shock Team Vitality at Starladder Budapest Major Stage 3

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 04/12/2025

FaZe Clan’s Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) team are suddenly flying at the Starladder Budapest Major Stage 3 after shocking Team Vitality.

FaZe barely survived an early elimination from StarLadder after completing a dramatic comeback against RED Canids.

Now the team has surprisingly taken down one of the best CS2 teams in the world after defeating Vitality 13-7.

While FaZe were scrapping their way through the tournament, Vitality was directly invited to Stage 3.

The roster has had an incredible 2025, as Vitality completed a legendary win streak of multiple CS2 Majors.

However, Vitality hasn’t won a Tier 1 LAN event since that last Major in Austin, Texas, back in June.

That’s why analyst Janko ‘YNk’ Paunović told ENUK that Vitality are unlikely to win Starladder, and it looks like he might’ve been right.

Vitality lost their first game of the tournament and now have their work cut out to recover in the Swiss Stage.

And that’s largely thanks to FaZe’s David ‘frozen⁠’ Čerňanský, who is still having a remarkable tournament.

frozen was fantastic on T-side, opening with a pistol-round triple kill and ending with a +11.1% in kill-death swing.

FaZe ended the first half with a 5-7 lead and then performed even more admirably while defending.

Vitallity’s Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut remained a potent threat, picking up a few wallbangs amongst his nine AWP kills and four first kills during the match.

But a strong defensive performance by Jakub ‘jcobbb⁠’ Pietruszewski on CT-side made sure that FaZe secured the victory, 13-7.

It sends a strong message that FaZe are suddenly serious contenders at this event.

The team has come a long way from dropping a map to Fluxo and being seconds away from being eliminated by RED Canids.

FaZe shakes up the Starladder Swiss Stage

The surpirse win has put the rest of the tournament on notice. However, there are still a lot of stacked teams for FaZe to contend with.

FaZe’s prize for defeating Vitality is another stern test in a match with Team Spirit and Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets.

Meanwhile, G2 Esports have had a great start to Stage 3, defeating Passion UA 13-8 and paiN 13-7.

However, the current Starladder Budapest favourites have to be FURIA, who are top of the CS2 Valve Regional Standings for December.

The Brazilian organisation are coming into the tournament off the back of winning IEM Chengdu and BLAST Open Fall back-to-back.

FURIA has made a strong start to Starladder Budapest, thrashing Natus Vincere 13-2.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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