Spirit and FUT came through the semi-finals of the Esports World Cup’s Counter-Strike 2 tournament to reach the grand final, HLTV reported. The two sides had never met before, and the title match was scheduled as a best-of-five.
FUT booked their place first, outlasting FURIA in a series that went the distance and finished in overtime on Dust2. HLTV called the result a significant achievement for a roster whose best big-event finish to date had been fourth place at the ESL Pro League Season 23 Finals, in what is the organisation’s first full year competing at tier one.
FURIA opened with Ancient for the third time at the event, and it did not pay off. FUT leaned on a 2v4 from Nikita "cmtry" Samolotov and a clutch from Dmytro "dem0n" Myroshnychenko to take a first-half lead on the terrorist side, then forced a retake at 10-11 that left FURIA on poor buys for the rest of the map. Nuke went the other way: Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis won a 1v3 that carried FURIA’s attacking half, and Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato locked down the following pistol round with a triple kill on Dualies.
That sent the series to Dust2, where FURIA built an eight-round attacking half after a forcebuy in round three worked out through a Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo double. FUT clawed the map back with two 3v5 wins, one in the pistol round and another at 7-10, before turning a 2v4 on the B site into match point and taking the decider in overtime.
Spirit’s semi-final was more one-sided. They beat Legacy 13-7 on Dust2 and 13-9 on Ancient, with HLTV writing that the second scoreline flattered the Brazilian side, who won both pistol rounds and their conversions but were otherwise contained.
Danil "donk" Kryshkovets and Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov did most of the damage. On Ancient the pair reached halftime with 19 and 12 kills respectively, more than the other three Spirit players combined. On Dust2, Legacy had run out to a 5-1 lead on defence behind a 1v2 and two multi-kills from Vinicius "n1ssim" Pereira, before Kryshkovets and Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia pulled the half back against Legacy’s aggressive opening positions.
HLTV made Spirit heavy favourites going into championship Sunday, with the best-of-five grand final set to follow the third-place decider between Legacy and FURIA.