CS2 is an esport full of surprises and its Major tournaments are known to produce a lot of unexpected results.
At the Shanghai Major, Team Spirit was definitely in the top eight when it comes to favorites but their rank was 7th or 6th. For a competitor who wasn’t ranked in the top five to emerge victorious is quite a feat! But Danil “donk “Kryshkovets and his teammates definitely deserved to win.
Team Spirit’s Path To Victory
Spirit entered the tournament in the second stage. After losing the first match, against FURIA Esports, they easily defeated Wildcard (13 – 6) and Natus Vincere (13 – 2). HEROIC was a much tougher opponent but in the end, they too crumbled under the pressure of donk’s aggressive tactics.
In the playoffs of the Shanghai Major, Spirit encountered Team Liquid, MOUZ, and FaZe Clan. All three of them are in the top 10, so nobody can complain that donk’s team got lucky.
Against Liquid, donk made an incredible match, ending with a personal score of 47 – 25 and a rating 2.1 of 1.63. Meanwhile, on Liquid’s side, nobody was able to get more than 29 kills. Given the team’s low scores, it’s very surprising that they won 9 rounds on Anubis and 11 rounds on Dust II.
MOUZ played much better and managed to win a map, but they ran into a very determined Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov, who finished the match with a score of 54 – 31. Donk wasn’t even required to have a miraculous performance in this match but he played well enough to secure the victory for his team.
In the Grand Final, everyone was sure that Finn “karrigan” Andersen would win another trophy, but he was denied not just by donk, who finished with a score of 69 – 44, but also by a totally unexpected member of his team: Boris “magixx” Vorobiev, whose score was even better than his: 69 – 39.
Everyone else on Team Spirit had less than half their number of kills. But somehow, the strategy worked and Spirit won their first CS Major ever.
