Spirit recover from a 13-0 on Nuke to beat FUT 2-1

FUT, with coach coolio in for Krabeni, won Spirit’s own Nuke pick 13-0 before donk and tN1R went 45-16 on Ancient.

Spirit’s T side on Nuke had won 59% of its rounds over the last three months, the best record in the world. On Wednesday it won none. Team Spirit lost their own map pick 13-0 to a FUT Esports side playing with their coach, and still came through 2-1 (Cache 13-9, Nuke 0-13, Ancient 13-5) to secure a playoff place at BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2 in Hong Kong.

Spirit2-1FUTStats▾Cache 13-9, Nuke 0-13, Ancient 13-5

Spirit	K-D	+/-	ADR	KAST
donk	52-36	+16	103.8	77.4%
sh1ro	38-30	+8	71.8	69.8%
tN1R	40-37	+3	77.8	71.7%
zont1x	31-34	-3	67.6	75.5%
magixx	21-38	-17	50.7	64.2%

FUT	K-D	+/-	ADR	KAST
SunPayus	44-32	+12	87.8	66.0%
dem0n	37-36	+1	75.6	69.8%
xfl0ud	34-40	-6	69.9	73.6%
coolio	30-37	-7	51.3	66.0%
dziugss	29-37	-8	66.3	69.8%

A coach on stage for FUT

FUT arrived without their in-game leader. Aulon “Krabeni” Fazlija could not get a visa for Hong Kong in time, and on the eve of the event FUT named coach András “coolio” Fercsák as his stand-in for the whole tournament.

It is the second time this year the Hungarian has swapped the coach’s chair for a seat on stage, after standing in for lauNX at BLAST Rivals Season 1. “I’m officially a player when we play Blast Rivals 😅”, he wrote on X the night before. As HLTV pointed out, FUT will now go to the PGL Major Singapore with only four series played by their first-choice lineup.

Cache, FUT’s pick, went the way most expected for a half. Spirit won the first five rounds on the CT side and led 9-3, with Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov at 13-3. coolio had three kills by the break, then found his feet on the CT side: 9-5 with 90.0% KAST, an MP9 headshot on donk and a Famas hold on B. FUT closed to 11-9 before Spirit took the last two rounds.

Zero rounds on the world’s best T side

Nuke was where the series turned upside down. Spirit had picked it on the back of that T side, and had beaten FUT 13-5 on the map in the Esports World Cup final in August.

This time Spirit kept reaching good positions and then stalling. They did not plant the bomb until the 12th round, and FUT retook it. Álvaro “SunPayus” García finished the map 17-2 with 128.8 ADR, dem0n went 16-4 and won his duels on ramp, and Spirit’s five managed 22 kills between them. dziugss won the 1v1 against sh1ro in the second pistol round to complete the 13-0.

donk and tN1R answer on Ancient

Spirit started Ancient on the T side and found the pace that had been missing on Nuke. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets and tN1R had ten kills each and no deaths after five rounds of Ancient, and Spirit led 5-0 before coolio’s double headshot on A gave FUT their first round.

Spirit led 9-3 at the half again. On the CT side zont1x took over, and his P250 triple on a half-buy put Spirit on match point. donk finished Ancient 23-8 with 132.4 ADR, tN1R 22-8 and zont1x 16-9 with 94.4% KAST. SunPayus, so good on Nuke, went 7-15.

For Spirit, it was a first official win since they went out of PGL Masters Bucharest after a 0-2 against NAVI, and their first event since chopper left the team. The 13-0 will still need explaining. FUT summed up their day in one line.

A semi-final spot on the line for Spirit

Spirit play the winner of MOUZ against G2 in the Group B upper final on Thursday 09:30 CET, with a direct place in Saturday’s semi-finals at stake. FUT face the loser of that match at 07:00 in an elimination match. In Group A, FURIA and Vitality won their openers earlier on Wednesday.

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