sh1ro, donk shine as Spirit beat NAVI in Katowice

The Russian team passed its first real test with flying colors.

Spirit are through to the second upper bracket round of IEM Katowice’s Group A following a 2-1 victory over Natus Vincere, giving a strong account of themselves in their first big test in Katowice following easy wins over Apeks and The MongolZ in the Play-In stage.

Natus Vincere did well to come back from 3-9 down on Anubis with a stellar performance from Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov, but they were no match for their opponents on the other two maps as Spirit’s star duo of Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets and Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov were simply too hot.

After the match, Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev lamented that his team couldn’t wrap up the series in two maps. “We should have won on Anubis, but we trolled pretty heavily,” he said. “But a win is a win.”

sh1ro put Spirit in the lead on Ancient with a 1v3 clutch in the pistol round, kick-starting a dominant T side from the Russian team. Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov’s troops controlled the tempo from start to finish and outgunned their opponents, with donk finishing the half with 14 frags and a 123 ADR.

The second half brought a slight improvement from Natus Vincere, who easily won the pistol round with a trio of frags from Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy. However, the impetus of the game changed once Spirit had money in the bank. Their constant pushes caught NAVI’s players off-guard, resulting in a series of clean rounds that brought the map to a swift end.

Anubis began with a spectacular quad kill by Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius, but Natus Vincere’s respite was brief. Spirit took control of the game in the following round and ran all over the NAVI defense throughout the half as they took a commanding 9-3 lead to the break.

A more resolute-looking NAVI began to chip away at the deficit after the side switch, with w0nderful preventing Spirit from reaching double digits with a monumental 1v4 clutch in the 15th round. That incredible play flipped the game on its head and revitalized the international team, who picked up a close 13-11 victory to take the series to Mirage.

Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia opened up the action with three quick frags on the A site to put Spirit up ahead. Natus Vincere put up some resistance and even secured a narrow 3-2 lead, but then sh1ro took over the game and set his team up for an 8-4 half with 18 frags.

Spirit looked so confident in the game that they nearly threw away the subsequent pistol round in a 3v1 situation against Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen. Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev immediately called a timeout to prevent things from getting out of hand, and Spirit kept their composure for the remainder of the game.