Spirit cruise into playoffs in Belgrade

donk mustered a 1.71 series rating to put his team through to the playoffs.

Spirit have topped Group B and locked in a playoff spot at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade after handily dispatching of HEROIC 2-0 (Nuke 13-11, Mirage 13-8).

Despite the 0-2 defeat, Abdul "⁠degster⁠" Gasanov continued to look solid for his new team and had some pivotal rounds, but HEROIC simply couldn't weather the Spirit storm. The European combine has another shot at playoffs in the Group B decider match.

Date	Matches
BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024
16/05/2024	Aurora 19:25 MIBR	Match
17/05/2024	HEROIC 17:45 MIBR	Match

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets started where he left off on Wednesday against Aurora and put in a sublime performance to lead his team to victory, living up to his much-anticipated return to the server with 119 ADR and a 1.71 rating over the series.

HEROIC admittedly got close to forcing overtime on the first map after Spirit squandered a 5vs3 at 12-6 and nearly gave Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski's side a window back into the game, but donk provided the entry and trade kill needed to convert when it counted most.

The 17-year-old phenom was the one who ensured such a strong lead for Spirit in the first place, absolutely demolishing HEROIC in the first half with an 18-2-7 K-A-D, 166.8 ADR, and 2.46-rated CT side performance.

Such was his and Spirit's dominance that HEROIC failed to even plant the bomb in any of their lost rounds in the first half, an early spree of rounds doing them the small favor of making the scoreline look more competitive than it was.

A pistol and conversion in the second half served the same purpose and allowed HEROIC to tighten the gap, but Spirit quickly reached map point off further multi-kills from donk and Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov.

That aforementioned squandered 5vs3 almost came back to bite the Russian team as HEROIC managed to hold donk kill-less for four rounds, but the Katowice MVP got rolling again after nearly clutching a 1vs2 and helped close things out.

The Mirage decider unfolded in a similar fashion as HEROIC looked competitive early on, keeping the score level at 3-3, but the game quickly got away from them as Spirit steamrolled through bombsites for another 8-4 lead.

Another pistol, force-buy denial, and eco conversion let HEROIC again make the score look close, but once Spirit had guns in hand, it was back to business as usual. donk tallied a triple kill to put his team in control, and Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia came up big in the final stretch with multi-kills in four of the next five rounds to net Spirit a playoff berth.