BetBoom beat Team Spirit 13-3 on Spirit’s own Ancient pick, came back from 4-8 on Mirage and closed the series with a one-against-three from zorte, while donk had one of the worst series of his year.
Team Spirit arrived at PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 as the top-ranked team in the world on HLTV and lost their first match 2-1 to BetBoom on Saturday. Spirit won BetBoom’s pick Anubis 13-10, but BetBoom answered with 13-3 on Ancient and a 16-14 overtime win on Mirage.
Spirit arrived as the number one team in the world on HLTV and clear favourites. BetBoom came straight from Malta, where they lost the Thunderpick World Championship final 2-3 to FURIA last Sunday after leading the series 2-1. Bucharest was their chance to show that Malta was not a one-off. They leave the first day with the biggest scalp in the tournament.
BetBoom2-1
Team SpiritStatsAnubis 10-13, Ancient 13-3, Mirage 16-14
zorte
tN1R
zorte’s one-against-three
The last round of the series belonged to zorte. BetBoom had two map points in regulation, at 12-10 and 12-11, and two more in overtime at 15-13 and 15-14. Spirit saved the first three. On the fourth, zorte was left alone with an AWP against three Spirit players. He killed one with a no-scope, switched to his pistol and finished the other two to close Mirage 16-14.
It capped his best series in a long time. He finished with 57 kills and 37 deaths, the most kills and the best K-D in the match by a distance, and 87% KAST. On Ancient he went 14-4 with 106.2 ADR. zorte had not put up big numbers for some time before Malta, but he was one of BetBoom’s best players there, and in Bucharest he carried that over against the best team in the world.
He was not alone. Every BetBoom player except Boombl4 and Magnojez finished with more kills than deaths, and the in-game leader made up for his numbers with the calling. Boombl4 had ten kills before Spirit won a single round on Ancient. He also outcalled magixx over the series, most clearly on Ancient, and kept BetBoom calm when the decider slipped into overtime.
Spirit lose their own map 13-3
The result turned on Ancient. It was Spirit’s pick and, on paper, their surest map: they had won nine of their previous ten Ancients. BetBoom won the first five rounds and led 10-2 at the half. Spirit had three opening kills on the whole map, and zont1x finished it with three kills and 14 deaths. No Spirit player reached ten kills.
Mirage looked like the reply. After BetBoom won the pistol round and the round after it, Spirit took eight of the next ten, with zont1x on 15 kills and five deaths late in the half, for an 8-4 lead on the T side. BetBoom then won the second pistol and took the second half 8-4 on the CT side to force overtime, where they won four of six rounds.
The first map had shown what was coming. BetBoom led 7-5 at the half on Anubis, their own pick, before Spirit turned it around on the CT side. A clutch from sh1ro, four kills on 26 HP ending in a one-against-one, put Spirit 5-3 up, but BetBoom won the last four rounds of the half.
The quiet day of donk
The most striking line on the scoreboard was donk‘s. Spirit’s star opened the series with an ace on the pistol round of Anubis and finished the first map 20-15, but the rest of the series went against him. He ended on 47 kills and 55 deaths with 74.1 ADR, at the bottom of the scoreboard by rating, and it was his third-worst series of the year by rating, behind only his series against Astralis and Falcons.
He was in the middle of the final round too. With Spirit three against one, he was caught holding a wide angle by zorte, and the clutch began from there.
The duel the build up had focused on went donk’s way. Both came through Team Spirit’s academy before Magnojez joined BetBoom in March 2024, and the two friends have played around 800 FACEIT matches together. donk won the head-to-head on the first map and stayed narrowly ahead in their direct duels over the series. Magnojez finished on 44 kills and 47 deaths. It did not matter, because BetBoom found the rest of their kills elsewhere, and sh1ro also had a difficult day on Mirage, where he went 20-19 with 58.1 ADR.
Seventh in the world
For BetBoom, the reward goes beyond a 1-0 start. The result is worth 60 VRS points and moves them from eighth to seventh in HLTV’s calculation, with Spirit dropping 20 points and slipping from third to fourth. HLTV’s simulation before the match had BetBoom’s chance of an ESL Pro League Season 25 invite at 56.6%, rising to 78.9% with a win. Neither team’s Major place was in question.
Spirit now share the 0-1 pool with Aurora, MOUZ and TYLOO, who also lost on the opening day, and need three series wins from their next four to stay in the event.
