Spirit 2-0 VP to secure semi-final berth

The Katowice champions could lock horns with FaZe on stage once again ahead of the tournament break.

Spirit have secured a bye to the semis of BLAST Premier Spring Final after beating Virtus.pro 2-0 in the Group B winners' match, setting up a tantalizing bracket draw in which they will face the winner of FaZe vs. Vitality on Saturday.

Virtus.pro will start from the quarter-final due to the loss and will face Astralis for the first time since adding Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov, with the Danes having got the better of VP's previous lineup in their last meeting at IEM Chengdu.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024
14/06/2024	FaZe 17:00 Vitality	Match
14/06/2024	Astralis 20:40 Virtus.pro	Match
15/06/2024	Spirit 17:00 Vitality	Match
15/06/2024	Natus Vincere 21:10 Virtus.pro	Match

Spirit fumbled their Ancient pick to a Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov-less G2 on Wednesday, but they didn't shy away from picking into it again against Virtus.pro.

In a post-match interview, Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets said the decision had nothing to do with the loss to G2 and was simply because Spirit liked the map, before touching on the matchup against Virtus.pro and his feelings about matching up against them.

"For me, they are the most uncomfortable team and this game was just a life game, I guess," the Russian star said. "They are sometimes comfortable [to play] and sometimes not, but we should just play our game and we did it. so we won.

"Their style is hard for me and Jame's rotations on the map are smart, so it's kind of hard for me to play against him."

The decision to go back to Ancient paid off in spades as Spirit cruised to victory on the map, but they needed to dig deep to stall out a comeback attempt on Dust2 to close out the game.

It wasn't the donk show in the first few rounds of the series, but it didn't take long for him to become the main act in town.

Virtus.pro tallied two early rounds off the back of an electroNic quad kill and looked poised to make Ancient a competitive map, but were dealt a brutal blow after Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov pulled off a miraculous 1vs4 clutch on B.

donk completely took over after that, tallying 127 ADR and 16 kills in the first half alone — two more frags than the rest of Spirit combined — for an 8-4 lead, and Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia helped close out a flawless CT half to take Ancient over the line.

A similar scenario unfolded on Dust2 as Virtus.pro's 3-0 start dwindled after Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev stepped up with a handful of multi-kills, buying time again for donk to come alive and shut VP out of bombsites.

Two late rounds at the end of the half inspired little confidence in VP as Spirit picked up right where they left off after the side swap, reaching touching distance of victory with four rounds on the trot for an 11-5 lead.

Petr "⁠fame⁠" Bolyshev tallied a multi-kill to give VP some momentum and the gap between the teams started to close, but donk and Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov combined to crack open Middle and reach series point before shutting down the comeback just shy of overtime to close out the game.