Spirit progress to Katowice group stage over Sprout

The Russian squad completes the IEM Katowice group stage team list.

Spirit have booked their ticket in the IEM Katowice group stage with a win over Sprout, becoming the last team to do so through the Play-In. The teams traded each other's map picks of Overpass and Vertigo before engaging in a showdown on Anubis, where it was Spirit who prevailed with a 16-10 scoreline.

Spirit showed a completely different face than in their previous match against Ninjas in Pyjamas, where they failed to reach double digits on either of the maps. Their individuals woke up in the do-or-die match against Sprout, especially Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov, who the desk singled out as a win condition for the team. The 19-year-old finished the series with a 1.26 rating and led the way with ten entry kills across the three maps.

Sprout end their IEM Katowice campaign with the loss and will lament their defeats to OG and Spirit. They failed to get going in the deciding series against the Russian squad on two of the maps, despite Danny "⁠BERRY⁠" Krüger saying they were very satisfied with all three maps in the series in the pre-match interview.

Spirit began Overpass in bullish form, enabled by Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov's quad-kill in the pistol round. The Russian squad rode the momentum to a 9-1 lead, despite many of the rounds ending in close fashion. Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev and Patsi had to step up with clutches early in the second half, denying Sprout's openings with good timings or individual plays. Near the end of the half, the Ismail "⁠refrezh⁠" Ali-led squad found some footing on their offense, securing three rounds in their favor to go into the interval 4-11 down.

Pavel "⁠S1ren⁠" Ogloblin was the next in line for a highlight play, as the youngster aced in the second half pistol to put Spirit in the driver's seat. They wasted no time in closing out the map by winning the first gun round, which helped them complete a 16-4 victory as the series moved on to their map pick of Vertigo.

Sprout took the lead for the first time in the series after winning the pistol round, and the majority-Danish team completely flipped the script from the first map. They found themselves 9-0 up in no time and looked comfortable throughout, with captain refrezh leading by example with 19 kills in the first half. Spirit's limited success came from individual plays, one of them being magixx's 1vs2 clutch that started a late resurgence which enabled the Russian squad to post three rounds on their offense.

Spirit showed signs of life at the start of their CT side with a pistol win and following conversion, but otherwise won just one more round on their way to a 6-16 loss. Sprout had no trouble closing out the map and showed proficient play on their offense as well, with the teams going into the decider after commandingly winning each other's map picks.

The final map of the series was Anubis, a map that Spirit were yet to play in an official game. Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov and S1ren converted a 2vs5 situation in the pistol round which helped them get a strong start, but Sprout wasted no time in getting back into the game. The Danish-Romanian team equalized the score at 5-5 after three in a row, with Spirit forced down to an eco. The Russian side did save an AWP, however, and it was the sniper rifle that proved influential in the round win that put them back into the lead. That gave them the confidence and momentum they required to get back in control, as they ended the half 10-5 ahead.

Sprout won their second pistol of the map to reduce the deficit to just three rounds, but once Spirit got their guns out it was all one-way traffic; the Russian squad quickly reached match point at 15-7. They needed four attempts to close out the game, with magixx's triple-kill providing the final nail in Sprout's coffin to eliminate them from the tournament.