Spirit and donk were handed a paddling on map one but recovered to reach the Major final.
Spirit are the first team into the Shanghai Major final after emerging victorious against MOUZ.
They had to bounce back from a drubbing on Nuke, where MOUZ looked at their studio best, but on the more aim-heavy maps of Ancient and Mirage individual mistakes crept in and their stage demons reared their heads.
Danil “donk” Kryshkovets had his second-worst map of the year on Nuke as Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek’s surgical T side kept him shackled, but he was released on the next two as Spirit reset effectively to win their pick and the decider in convincing fashion.
Even as donk improved, it was Spirit’s supporting cast that got them over the line: Boris “magixx” Vorobiev was the key man on Ancient and Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov led Spirit’s Mirage recovery with a 1v1 and 6 kills in three rounds, the two men who have come under intense criticism as Spirit’s year started to trend down.
For MOUZ, however, with rumors swirling around the squad’s future, the pressure did seem to have an effect on Ancient and Mirage.
“We couldn’t stop them,” admitted siuhy post-game. “The pressure got to us. We didn’t play like we normally do. We could have played more aggressively.”
The series could not have started better for MOUZ as siuhy called a surgical T side on their pick of Nuke, finding eight rounds and limiting donk to a 0.23 CT rating.
MOUZ’s CT side was just as good, and donk ended with a 1-8 record in openers, just 30% KAST, and 40 ADR for his second worst map of 2024.
The narrative for Spirit in so much of this year has been the squad’s reliance on donk, and after such a poor map one the pressure was on their supporting cast to deliver.
And magixx, so often the one under scrutiny, was the one to step up. His roles couldn’t be harder, but on Ancient he stepped up time and time again as Spirit looked like a completely different team on their own map pick. The Russian anchor ended the map with a 1.81 rating, ahead of a donk that was returning to his usual level.
Only a Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin smoke defuse and a Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo quad-kill on the Five-SeveN offered resistance as Spirit dominated the gun rounds.
Mirage has gone MOUZ’s way the last three times the two teams have met, and siuhy’s troops got off to a strong 5-2 start.
There were warnings, however, as donk found four in a 3v5 in the (lost) pistol and a triple in another 3v5, in the first gun round that Spirit actually won.
But as Spirit recovered from 2-5 to 6-6 it was a true team effort, and another unlikely hero in the form of chopper won a crucial 1v1 over a shakey Dorian “xertioN” Berman — whose stage struggles continued with a 13-33 K-D over Ancient and Mirage — to put Spirit in the driver seat.
In truth, the second half never really started for MOUZ as chopper set a fast pace for a 5-0 start to the second half. Economy was always an issue, and Spirit ran out 13-7 winners to secure the organization’s first ever Major final.
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