Throughout the semi-final, Spirit were keen to punish Falcons’ overpeeking and mistakes.
Spirit managed to keep control of a dangerous Falcons squad to continue their period of success since BLAST Bounty. They set up a grand final clash against either Viality or MOUZ.
Falcons tried to punish Spirit by picking Nuke, but were hung out to dry by an abysmal T-side. They were then exposed on Ancient for the fourth time this event.
Spirit punish Falcons’ mistakes
Falcons individuals started firing early into Nuke, a critical map for them to win the series. But the teamplay was lacking, leading to an almost fruitless T-side.
After Spirit won the pistol round, Falcons had a great chance to weaken Spirit’s economy in the fourth round. However, they failed to properly execute their Ramp take, allowing Dmitriy ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov to find two kills by himself against four players to instantly win the round.
Maxim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin was on point aim-wise, finding three Desert Eagle headshots in the next round against three different angles, however, Falcons could still not win a round.
Spirit go up 11-1 with tN1R farming Falcons
Falcons had the CT-side to look forward to, as Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac highlighted in their team comms. But they needed at least T-rounds, and they kept fumbling round after round.
Spirit managed to win a 2v3 situation in Round 8, with Andrey ‘tN1R’ Tatarinovich finding Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov somehow after climbing up the vents. Daniil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets and sh1ro were reliable as ever, but tN1R had the most impact in the first half, with 14 kills and only five deaths.
Even after a “terrible spray” from Myroslav ‘zont1x’ Plakhotia on the B-site, Spirit still wrested back control of the situation as sh1ro clutched another 1v1 situation in Round 11.
Round 12 could have gone either way, but Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen won a low HP 1v1 to at least get Falcons one round of the first twelve of their own map pick.
Falcons string together five on the CT-side
Falcons CT-side started as it needed to by winning the pistol. Spirit’s attack was as flat as ever, with donk having little to no impact, barely planting the bomb at all.
After an abysmal first half, René ‘TeSeS’ Madsen started to find himself, holding down the A-site. Falcons started to get help from the crowd. In Round 17, m0NESY was able to catch a lurking Spirit player thanks to a crowd reaction.
At 7-11, Spirit had a chance to take the round as it came down to a 2v2. While having a poor map, NiKo found both Spirit players on the site to keep Falcons’ CT-side flawless.
sh1ro claws back a 3v5 with Falcons overpeeking
The two-headed dragon struck again, as sh1ro was calm as ever in a 3v5 situation to punish Falcons. He found an overpeeking m0NESY to open the flood gates, finding two more walking into him.
After that, Spirit took advantage of a tactical timeout to rush A, where karrigan fell to his death in the chaos of the execute. Spirit won the map 13-8, heading into Falcons’ weak point of Ancient.
Ancient begins as Nuke did
Falcons headed into Ancient having lost three out of three times on it this event, including a 10-13 loss against Lynn Vision to open up the tournament.
Thankfully for them, Falcons took the T-side pistol round, preventing a one-sided affair to start out. But when the guns came out, Spirit took control. In a 3v5, sh1ro and tN1R found kills on all five Falcons players running into their crosshair after a skirmish in middle, failing to trade each other.
In the next round, m0NESY admirably managed to find three Spirit players with a USP-S, but it was not enough to win the round. But Falcons won the next round cleanly, building off of it.
Spirit quell Falcons streak
In the bulk of the first half, Falcons were flying with m0NESY starting to take over the map. He helped propel Falcons to win a streak of three CT-rounds thanks to a 1v1 clutch against sh1ro.
However, Spirit were canny in not letting go of the gas. Despite being outdone in the middle part of the map, they found solutions to grab three rounds at the the end of the half, tying the map 6-6.
Spirit seize control but karrigan refuses to go quietly
Spirit didn’t let go of the gas as they won the pistol round with a timely donk appearance, taking three kills. Spirit took control of the economy and the map, going up 11-7 in the map.
With a force buy, Falcons squeaked out a round to get to 8-11, however, Spirit took the next round cleanly with an A-site stack.
Out of nowhere, karrigan stepped up to find two opening kills against map point, catching zont1x and donk. Then, Falcons went onto find their tenth round of the map, within two of reaching overtime.
TeSeS finds an ice-cold clutch and m0NESY almost forces OT with a 1v4
Falcons found themselves in a 2v4 situation, up against elimination due to a single mistake. They were caught in a crossfire on A-site, but m0NESY managed to swipe one more kill before leaving TeSeS in a 1v2.
He managed to evade the timing of death twice due to a hesitant Spirit, then found a clinical headshot to make it a 1v1. He then called tN1R’s bluff on the defuse not once, but twice to win the clutch and keep Falcons alive.
In the final round, it was almost m0NESY again to steal the map right at the end. In a 1v4 situation, m0NESY shaved off three players with the AWP, miliseconds away from the clutch in the 1v1 against Boris ‘magixx’ Vorobiev, but it was the captain to hold his nerve.
magixx: “[zont1x] is extremely useful, especially when I’m choking”
After a tense series, magixx was asked about zont1x’s impact on Spirit’s playstyle.
[zont1x] is extremely useful, especially when I’m choking. He is playing in a lot of areas where he can see more things going on, sometimes he is offering something.
He also spoke about the internal changes Spirit underwent with the instability regarding their coach.
[When we had S0tF1k] we were able to understand what things are useful for us as a team. we went through pretty big changes, as far as responsibility, it’s pretty different from what we have before.
Karrigan: “Spirit is the best team of the start of the season”
In another post-match interview, karrigan spoke with James Banks and told him that Spirit had a great day, making plans to punish Falcons, saying that he thinks Spirit is the best team of the season so far.
We have some space to give tN1R
