Spirit have secured the final playoff berth at ESL Pro League Season 24 after beating M80 in a two-map series (13-6 Dust2, 13-10 Cache).
It was Spirit’s third attempt at qualifying for the Spodek after faltering against MOUZ and 1win, and they finally got the job done despite facing some trouble on M80’s Cache pick. A return to form for Danil “donk” Kryshkovets ensured things wouldn’t get out of control, though, and two big clutches from Boris “magixx” Vorobiev and Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov ended up making the difference for Spirit to close things out in the end.
Clip: magixx pulls off crazy 1v4 ace clutch
Spirit steamrolled through Dust2, donk getting loud early and calling M80 “fucking bots” a few rounds in as he led the charge in a blowout first half. M80 won the pistol off the back of a quad-kill from Josh “JBa” Barutt, but couldn’t string together rounds until they converted their second pistol win.
Even that did little to stem the bleed as poor decision-making left them destitute in the late round, and Spirit wasted no time in closing out the map with donk, Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia, and sh1ro all performing well.
Cache could have been where M80 struck back, looking a cut above Spirit for much of the first half with some great preparation to counter some early moves. They drummed up an 8-4 lead by the break, but the scoreline could have been far more of a blowout had the American-majority side not given away a 1v4 ace clutch to magixx and a 1v3 to sh1ro just two rounds later.
Clip: sh1ro lightning fast with the AWP for a 1v3 clutch
M80 continued to find success in opening duels after the swap, making it onto bombsites early even with worse weapons, but excellent retakes and fragging output from donk, magixx, and sh1ro saw Spirit repeatedly claw back in the late rounds. That led to a 7-1 run as Spirit romped into the lead, and after M80 finally closed out one of those late-round situations, Spirit struck right back to clinch victory — leaving Fritz “slaxz-” Dietrich to state, “there are too many cooks in the kitchen.”
