hally: "Many things are made in order to let donk realize his potential"

"If you have a player like donk, it's foolish not to use his stronger sides," the Russian tactician added.

Spirit have had an up-and-down year that includes three titles alongside a plethora of playoff finishes, but the Russian squad is far from their peak form coming into the Shanghai Major.

They needed to fight tooth and nail to make it to the Major as the winners of the seventh-place decider match before starting the Elimination Stage with a loss to FURIA.

Things have turned around since then, however, as they demolished Natus Vincere and Wildcard to reach the 2-1 pool, where they dispatched HEROIC thanks to a Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets masterclass.

Date	Matches
Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024
05/12/2024	Spirit Finished 6:13 FURIA	Match
05/12/2024	Spirit Finished 13:6 Wildcard	Match
06/12/2024	Natus Vincere Finished 2:13 Spirit	Match
07/12/2024	Spirit Finished 2:1 HEROIC	Match

After securing a playoff berth following the victory against Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz and company, Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev spoke to HLTV about the team's campaign in Shanghai, the match against HEROIC, and donk's form.

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On Ancient, it ended up looking like you threw away the start of the game. Can you tell me how the team closed down this map?

Speaking of Ancient, if we take the attack and how we started off, we had issues with grenade management. We did the rounds that we were discussing before this game, but we didn't execute them the way we prepared them.

Some nervousness was felt because in the middle we were overplaying erratically and didn't play the zones we needed. But we managed to even it out and play a positive side for us. Speaking of defense, we lost some first encounters that affected our economy, but we managed to come back.

On Mirage, it seemed once it got to the second half, you've had a lot of trouble dealing with NertZ in Middle. He was getting a lot of entries there. What what the issue with Mirage, not being able to end it in two?

I think the problem was that HEROIC prepared well against us. Particularly, they were breaking the timings in Middle and saving nades. And while having the timing, they repeeked on Mid. We were not ready for this, and we need to make some conclusions in order to make it easier and counter such play the next time we play Mirage.

Heading into Dust2, a map that Spirit occasionally struggled with against the big teams. Has it damaged the faith in the map in the team, and how was it in this game? It seemed quite comfortable in the beginning, and then they started to come back again. How did you come back to finish strong?

The loss to FURIA did affect us in part, but I think I've made a mistake with the veto. Even though we've had a plan to win against them, it didn't work. I made a mistake with the game plan, but also the execution wasn't perfect.

But speaking of confidence, I don't think it affected it. We have things to work on Dust2 in the mid-rounds. And my understanding is that Dust2 is a map where a lot of things depend on the micro decisions of players, because you can't over-stack the sites on this map. So the mid and late-round plays were lacking, and we need to work on that.

Regarding this map against HEROIC, we lost a force round to them while leading 5-1, I think, and also lost both pistols. There was a round when we were going Short, that round was for the economy, and we didn't play that situation carefully enough. We were 5v3, and just like on Mirage, we had that problem of momentarily trying to increase the advantage instead of trying to maintain it. The opponents at this level punish this.

How did this stage go for Spirit after a very difficult run at the RMR? What were the main adjustments made going into the stage? How satisfied are you with the performance you showed here?

We had games we lost to G2 and Passion UA. Speaking of Passion UA, massive props to the guys. They went in and showed very confident Counter-Strike at the first big event of their careers. But the RMR is always a stress for teams. In BO1s we lost a ninja defuse, we lost two force buys, after which we managed to come back, but didn't finish the job at some points, hence losing to Passion UA.

Then G2, a matchup that we often lose. I don't even remember when we won over them... Oh yes, it was in London, when TaZ was playing. This was a very close series where micro-details determined the outcome. After this we knew we had two matches to win, and that is not an easy situation. But we needed to understand that we were stronger than the opponents, and I'm happy that the guys recognized that, and we won 4-0 map-wise.

After the RMR, we had ten days till the next stage which is a long break. We tried to maintain the balance between practice, fixing the mistakes, and refreshing our game by adding some new details. I think we managed well to prepare for this stage. Playoffs are next, and it's a separate story — we'll see.

Talking about pre-requisities, it's obvious that donk is on a very high level at this tournament. Does that make the team's confidence high for a potential deep, title run?

Yes, sure, we recognize that we have a guy who can turn the round around, he's the X factor. Meanwhile, we try to utilize him in the right way. Our main goal is to win as a team. There were games where we won while Danya [donk] didn't have great numbers. But if you have a player like Danya, it's foolish not to use his stronger sides, so many things are made in order to let him realize his potential.