The Spirit rifler says the team played with overconfidence in Bucharest and used the IEM Beijing break to work out what went wrong.
Spirit skipped IEM Beijing to practise and talk through their exit from Bucharest, tN1R said in an interview shown on BLAST’s broadcast during Team Spirit‘s 2-1 win over FUT on Wednesday. The Belarusian rifler was blunt about what had gone wrong at PGL Masters Bucharest, where Spirit lost 2-1 to NAVI and finished 9th-11th.
When we came to Bucharest, we also have some issues about our game. […] It looks like we don’t play as a team. Maybe, maybe we have overconfidence.
Asked what the team did with the time off instead of going to Beijing, he said: “We just had practice. We’re just talking about our last tournaments, what we should fix, just talking how we can improve.”
A good start that faded
tN1R described a season that started well and lost its way after a busy run of events. “It was sad, for real, because on start of the season we have very good start”, he said. Spirit did not show their form at the ESL Pro League, he added, and thought they had found it again before Bucharest, only for the problems to come back there.
Before Bucharest, Spirit had won BLAST Open Porto and finished fourth at the ESL Pro League. Since Bucharest, captain chopper has left the team, and Hong Kong is their first event without him.
Rivals as a warm-up and a confidence test
Spirit have already secured a Stage 3 invite to the PGL Major Singapore, which starts on 24 November. At the Cologne Major in June they had to start in Stage 2, and they went on to reach the semi-finals, where they lost 2-1 to Falcons. tN1R said Rivals is both a warm-up and a chance to rebuild the team’s belief:
I think it’s both factors, like, it’s also warm-up before Major and it’s also tournament where we can back our confidence as a team, because if we will, for example, win this tournament, I think it’s very good because we will have confidence before Major. It’s very important, and finally we will start from third stage, because last time we are starting from second stage and, little bit, yeah, it was too hard.
He also pointed to last year’s Hong Kong event as a sign that a bad patch does not have to carry into a Major. Spirit had lost at the ESL Pro League before that event too, he said, then showed a “good fight against Vitality” in Hong Kong and went on to good results at the Major. Spirit lost 2-1 to Vitality in the quarter-finals of BLAST Rivals 2025 Season 2.
Zero rounds on their own Nuke pick
The interview went out shortly after Spirit had lost their own Nuke pick 13-0 to a FUT side playing with coach coolio in place of Krabeni. BLAST’s casters said it was potentially the first 13-0 map loss in the organisation’s history. Spirit recovered to win the series 2-1, with tN1R going 22-8 on the deciding Ancient.
Spirit2-1
FUTStatsCache 13-9, Nuke 0-13, Ancient 13-5
tN1R
xfl0ud
coolio
dziugssG2 next, with a semi-final at stake
Spirit play G2 in the Group B winners’ match on . The winner goes straight to Saturday’s semi-finals at BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2, and the loser drops into Friday’s quarter-finals. G2 reached that match by beating MOUZ 2-1, while MOUZ play FUT earlier on Thursday to stay in the tournament.
