The quarterfinals of BLAST Open Spring 2025 ended with predictable results. Two of the best three teams in the world at the moment, MOUZ, and Team Spirit, defeated their opponents with ease.
Some had hoped for a miracle but it was clear that Natus Vincere, in their current form, could not defeat Spirit, while G2 Esports were not yet ready for MOUZ.
NAVI vs. Spirit: 0 – 2
These two teams know each other well. Their rosters haven’t changed in a long time and they’ve had to play against one another many times. With several exceptions, Spirit won each time.
We knew from the start that if Mihai “iM” Ivan and his teammates do not succeed in disrupting Danil “donk” Kryshkovets and Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov, NAVI had no chance of winning. Unfortunately for them, both players finished the match with spectacular scores: 42 – 20 for donk and 37 – 14 for sh1ro.
The maps were Dust II (7 – 13) and Anubis (6 – 13). It’s not clear what NAVI had in mind when they allowed Spirit to pick Dust II, given that their win rate on it is close to 100%. In 14 games, they only lost once. Meanwhile, NAVI’s map pick was just as surprising. Instead of picking Mirage, they picked Anubis and were destroyed on it.
MOUZ vs. G2: 2 – 0
MOUZ won PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 just one month ago. After that, they finished 2nd at ESL Pro League S21. So it’s not that big of a surprise to see them winning against a G2 lineup that is struggling to find a winning strategy in the absence of Nikola “NiKo” Kovac.
After benching Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek and replacing him with Lotan “Spinx” Giladi, the team’s results improved tremendously. There are very few teams in the world that could realistically beat MOUZ in their current form. Team Vitality and Spirit are two of them, but it’s hard to think of anyone else.
In this match, against G2, MOUZ crushed Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov on perhaps his best map, Inferno. MOUZ picked Nuke and proved to be unstoppable. The scores were 13 – 8 and 13 – 3.
