Virtus.pro through to Legends stage after three map thriller

The third legend spot from the Challenger stage belongs to Virtus.pro. The CIS roster won their third match in the opening stage of the Major to qualify for the next stage with a narrow 2-1 against Team Spirit.

The action started on Inferno with a close first half, but from there on everything fell apart for Team Spirit. It started with a stupid mistake by Victor “sdy” Orudzhev who accidentally stabbed his own in-game leader Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov in the back, leaving his teammate with little health in the pistol round in the second half. Virtus.pro won the pistol round and the next seven rounds to win the map.

Team Spirit had chosen Ancient as map number two. But quickly they had to realize, that Virtus.pro came well prepared. Nothing seemed to work for Team Spirit, who could see Alexey 'Qikert' Golubev go 12-0 in K-D before finally winning a round at 0-7 down.

Spirit was trailing for the rest of the first half trying to catch up. On their CT-side the Russian roster managed to make the game much more even, and through some very solid defensive plays, they destroyed Virtus.pro. Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev went 20-5 in the second half alone!

Overpass was set as the decider. Here the two teams started by trading rounds until the halftime break. In the second half, it became evident, that it was Spirit, who had found themselves a momentum. In-game Dzhami 'Jame' Ali had a rough time on the map, where he was outgunned by Abdul 'degster' Gasanov, who finally after two slow maps had started to heat up. Despite multiple rounds of opening kills going in favor of Virtus.pro, they could not convert them to round wins and went behind 14-8. Two-round wins separated Team Spirit from a ticket to the Legends stage, but then they froze. Virtus.pro managed to tie the game up at 15-15 and forced the match to overtime.

Here Virtus.pro was finally able to get the better of Spirit, who seemed to have lost their momentum again. VP won the match 19-15 and is through to the Legend stage at PGL Stockholm. Team Spirit will have to win tomorrow against another 2-2 team to make it to the next stage.

Team Spirit - Virtus.pro 1-2 | PGL Stockholm Major Challengers Stage

7-16 (Inferno) |  YEKINDAR – 1.36 Rating / 19-13 K-D / 86.1 ADR

16-12 (Ancient) |  sdy – 1.36 Rating / 21-14 K-D / 92.1 ADR

15-19 (Overpass) |  buster – 1.40 Rating / 31-20 K-D / 99.4 ADR

MVP: Alexey 'Qikert' Golubev – 1.31 Rating / 69-50 K-D / 88.0 ADR