Spirit, Syman finalize playoffs bracket at CIS Minor

The playoffs bracket at the CIS Minor has been finalized following the advancement of Spirit and Syman, who beat Warthox and Gambit Youngsters, respectively, in the group deciders.

On the main stream, Gambit Youngsters made short work of Syman on their own pick, Overpass, as they mounted a great offense despite losing the initial pistol round. When it came to gunrounds, Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov & co. faced little opposition while they went on a seven-round streak, before eventually switching over to the defense with a comfortable 10 rounds to their name.

Once on the CT side, Gambit Youngsters looked to prolong the opening map no further, rallying to a 16-5 victory after stringing the first six rounds together with ease.

Going over to Syman's Mirage, the series took a turn as Sanzhar "⁠neaLaN⁠" Iskhakov's side went on an impressive streak on the Terrorist side after conceding the opening pistol round. Nicolas "⁠Keoz⁠" Dgus's 1v2 clutch kicked it off and he added another shortly afterward, with Syman mounting a 12-3 half on the back of the Belgian's plays and forcing the decider four rounds later.

That took place on Dust2, which began with a similar scenario, as Syman carried over the momentum from Mirage, looking just as dominant as they went 6-0 on the offense. Gambit Youngsters couldn't recover, conceding all but two of the remaining nine rounds of the half, and Syman cruised to a dominant victory on the deciding map.

Played on the secondary stream, Spirit and Warthox kicked their series off on Vertigo, a map that the latter side had never played officially before their encounter with Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev's team.

Despite that, the squad around Vladislav "⁠Flash_1⁠" Bykov managed five rounds on the much less-favored defensive side, in part thanks to a pistol round victory while also picking up a couple of individual rounds along the way. Although Spirit extended their lead to 12-5 early on in the second half, Warthox's offense proved difficult, as the favorites gave up six rounds in a row before picking up the four they needed thanks to some key AWP multikills from Artem "⁠iDISBALANCE⁠" Egorov and sdy.

Switching over to Dust2, Spirit quickly took control of the first half in spite of a pistol round loss, responding with a second-round forcebuy. Warthox could only pick up a round here and there without being able to endanger their opponents' economy, while Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov led his team to an 11-4 half.

Although Warthox closed the gap at the start of the second, it didn't take long for Spirit to tighten up the defense, putting an end to the series with five out of the last six rounds for a 16-8 victory.

The playoffs will begin on Friday, with the upper bracket semi-final matchups looking as follows:

16:00 - FORZE vs. Spirit
19:00 - DreamEaters vs. Syman