Earlier this week, after the end of BLAST Premier Spring Final, DreamHack Jönköping, and FiReLEAGUE Global Final, the ranks of the best CS2 teams in the world was recalculated and Team Spirit ascended to the top position.
For the first time in their history, they are officially regarded as the best team in the world. The story of how they got here less than a year after signing Danil “donk” Kryshkovets is quite interesting.
For 40th To 1st In Under One Year
If we take our starting point the Summer of 2023, we can say that Spirit climbed the ranks with incredible speed. Going from rank 40 to the number 1 position in CS2 this quickly is extremely rare. Such a spectacular achievement illustrates just how good players like donk and Dmitriy “sh1ro” Sokolov really are.
Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotja also joined the team in July last year and the fact that he hasn’t been benched indicates that he has been good enough to be part of this formidable roster.
Spirit won their first trophy of their journey to the top in December last year. It happened at BetBoom Dacha Dubai, a tournament that also featured Cloud9, FURIA Esports, Astralis, BetBoom Team, and Virtus.pro.
Sh1ro joined almost immediately after this success. With him on the roster, Spirit went from good to great in just a few months.
IEM Katowice took place at the beginning of February and was supposed to be a battle between Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, MOUZ, and G2 Esports. Despite the rumors, few people believed that donk would prove capable of carrying Spirit to their first S-tier trophy.
Their first match was against Natus Vincere and they won 2 – 1. At the time, the feeling was that Na’Vi underperformed. But by the end of the tournament, they were the only team that managed to win a map against Spirit. Donk’s performance was off the charts from start to finish, even against opponents like FaZe Clan.
In the Grand Final, Spirit defeated FaZe 3 – 0. Donk’s score was 82 – 40, with an ADR of 124 and a rating 2.0 of 1.93. The next best player was sh1ro, with a score of 53 – 30. Robin “ropz” Kool, FaZe Clan’s best player, finished the match with a score of 50 – 44.
After this great victory, Spirit were defeated in the quarterfinals of the Copenhagen Major. Then, at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade, they were defeated again but in the Grand Final played against MOUZ. IEM Dallas would be another “disappointment”: 3rd – 4th place, after a defeat against Team Vitality.
The second trophy of the season came at BLAST Premier Spring Final, where Spirit defeated G2 Esports, Virtus.pro, Team Vitality, and Natus Vincere. With this success, they went from being ranked 5th globally to being ranked 1st.
