Team Spirit stuns Astralis and wins the last map with 16-1!
In a major upset, the CIS team reversed swept Astralis and destroyed them on Dust2 to take the win.
It was a classic David vs Goliat lineup in the Upper Final in Group A at IEM Katowice. Team Spirit has been the big surprise of the tournament with several stellar performances. Their opponents need no further introduction, but worth mentioning is that Astralis has been drastically improved at IEM Katowice compared to their start of 2021.
The map veto seemed to favor Astralis with Team Spirit picking Inferno. And even though the Danes lost both the pistol rounds, they still managed to take home Inferno by 16-11.
The next stop was on Train. Once again the Danes lost both pistol rounds, but this time they did not follow up. Instead, Team Spirit activated their AWP’er Abdul 'degster' Gasanov and made full use of his abilities which allowed them to control the AWP friendly map.
Astralis had won the last four times on Train including two victories against Natus Vincere, but this Sunday they could not connect with their map pick and lost 16-13 after being down 14-5.
Both teams had Dust2 as their best map within the last three months. So it was only suiting, that it was here, that the match would be decided.
Dust2 started surreally. With a scoreline of 15-0! Team Spirit destroyed Astralis on their CT-side. Magisk and Gla1ve did not make a single kill in the first nine rounds. At this time Astralis surely had lost their spirit, while their Russian counterparts just kept on pushing through to take a historic win against the Danish powerhouse. The devastating looks on the Astralis players said it all with Magisk taking his hand up on his webcam to block the sight of a broken player at 0-15.
With Astralis having lost all the pistol rounds doing the match they suddenly managed to win the one in the second half to deny the ultimate humiliation of losing 16-0 for the first time in history.
It did not however stop Team Spirit from winning the match, as they won the subsequent round.
Team Spirit is now ready for the Semi-Finals at IEM Katowice, while Astralis will have to shake the shocking defeat off their chest on Friday, when they enter the playoffs in the Quarter-Finals.
Team Spirit - Astralis 2-1 (11-16, 16-13, 16-1)
MVP: Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov - 1.30 rating / 58-45 K-D / 88.0 ADR
