Vitality sign misutaaa to their CS:GO squad

Team Vitality have announced the signing of Kévin "misutaaa" Rabier earlier this Thursday, March 5, who will fill the gap in their CS:GO lineup.

Misutaaa has been announced as the fifth and final member of Team Vitality's CS:GO roster this Thursday. The 17-year-old CS:GO pro will arrive at the team shortly after Vitality parted ways with their In-game-leader Alex "ALEX" McMeekin, who grew tired of constant travelling and competition.

The newest addition to the French squad has spent last few years playing at a French squad Make Your Destiny and in November helped Viva Algeria qualify for the WESG 2019 World Finals. Unfortunately, the tournament was delayed and postponed amid the coronavirus concerns, meaning he was unable to participate in it.

With the arrival of misutaaa, Vitality now fields an all-French squad, consisting of Dan "apEX" Madesclaire, Cédric "RpK" Guipouy, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, Richard "shox" Papillon and now misutaaa.

Due to the departure of ALEX, it is unclear who will take over the role of an IGL in Vitality, although it's very likely shox will be put at the helm of his team, given that he has previous experience occupying the leadership role. Other speculations suggest apEX could take over for ALEX, seeing how he was often the secondary shot-caller in his teams.

The arrival of misutaaa, however, comes as a shock to many, considering it was initially said that Vitality are looking to sign another French CS:GO pro Ali "hAdji" Haïnouss, who is currently playing for Team LDLC. Although hAdji is vastly more experienced compared to misutaaa, Team Vitality seemingly decided to add young talent to their team instead, in hopes to see him develop into a star.

Misutaaa previously played for some smaller teams in MeMyself&I, PressZ, Make Your Destiny, Exalty, ROG HOUNGOUNGAGNE, XDDD, 2115, Viva Algeria and most recently Legends. Throughout his career, he has averaged 1.09 rating, 0.71 DPR, 66.6% KAST, put up 1.18 IMPACT rating, 0.75 KPR and 79.0 ADR.

There are some concerns with misutaaa's arrival, however, seeing how is an inexperienced player who will be dropped into the highest tier of CS:GO competition, where he will have to show up big time, to reach the expectations the fans and CS:GO community has for Vitality.

The expectations and demands will be that much higher for the young Frenchman, as Vitality have not been performing up to par in the last couple of months. Since the ZywOo and co. won EPICENTER 2019 at the end of the year, they struggled to make much noise in the CS:GO scene and they will surely look to change that.

At BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 Regular Season Vitality started strong with a 2-0 win over Natus Vincere, but hit the wall in round two where they lost to Complexity and later suffered a 0-2 sweep at the hands of NaVi. That loss denied Vitality an entry into Spring 2020 Finals and pushed them into SPring 2020 Showdown, where the French squad will compete with Ninjas in Pyjamas, Evil Genuises, MiBR, 100 Thieves and Astralis for the lion's share of US $325,000 in prize pool.

Following their poor display at BLAST Premier, Vitality took a swing at 2020 IEM Katowice, where Vitality won their opening match against NiP, only to suffer two back-to-back losses against Astralis and FaZe, which saw them crash out of the event at a ninth-12th place.

Vitality's first test with a new-look squad will come at ESL Pro League Season 11, which is set to kick off on Monday, March 16, featuring 24 teams who will compete for the largest slice of $750,000 prize pool.

Team Vitality CS:GO squad is now:

Cédric "RpK" Guipouy

Dan "apEX" Madesclaire

Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut

Richard "shox" Papillon

Kévin "misutaaa" Rabier

Rémy "XTQZZZ" Quoniam – coach