Strong starts push Spirit past Falcons in Belgrade

Falcons have been relegated to the lower bracket after losing all four pistol rounds.

Spirit are into BB Dacha's upper-bracket semi-final after dispatching of Falcons 2-0. They now move on to face the winner of Virtus.pro versus FURIA, while the loser of that match will face Falcons in the lower bracket.

Date	Matches
BetBoom Dacha Belgrade Season 2
29/08/2024	Falcons 11:00 Virtus.pro	Match
29/08/2024	Spirit 17:40 FURIA	Match

The 13-7 and 13-11 scorelines do not tell the full tale of a match largely decided by Spirit's quick starts to halves, with the Russians winning all four pistol rounds and converting them to 3-0, 6-0, 6-0, and 4-0 starts to each half.

But it was this exact type of frontrunning performance that made Spirit explode into the top tier of Counter-Strike late last year, when they won the inaugural BB Dacha in Dubai and smashed their way through IEM Katowice in February of this year.

Key to Spirit's performance is star man Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets, who is under some scrutiny for the first time in his short career after recording 1.04 and 0.85 ratings in his last two Big Events, far below his 1.33 average in 2024.

The 17-year-old phenom is back to his best in Belgrade and it was his acceleration from a 12-10 K-D at the halftime break on Nuke to 23-11 by the end of the first map that secured victory for Spirit.

Dust2 was even better, as donk started 12-1 and hit 30 kills in regulation despite Spirit once again relying on starting the halves strong to grab the victory.

Falcons trailed 5-7 at the half and 5-11 after the first four rounds of the second half, once again unable to stop Spirit in the pistols and forcebuys.

Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer and his men again tried to rally but fell narrowly short in round 24 against a simple B pop, enough for Spirit to take the map, 13-11, and the series, 2-0.