Team Vitality, the reigning CS2 world champions and the world’s top-ranked team, dropped a 1-2 series to Latin American underdog 9z in Stage 3 of IEM Cologne Major 2026 on June 12. After losing the opening map on Inferno (4-13), 9z responded by winning Mirage (13-9) and Dust2 (13-11), with Meyern, 9z’s AWPer, emerging as the difference-maker. The upset vaulted 9z to a 2-0 record in Stage 3, one win away from the playoff stage of the Major, which carries a prize pool between 1.17 and 1.25 million dollars. This performance is not a fluke: 9z had previously defeated Vitality at IEM Dallas 2024.
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