Spirit have secured a quarter-final spot at the Esports World Cup following a swift 2-0 victory over B8.
As if spurred on by his Spirit Academy successor Maksim "kyousuke" Lukin, who posted his career-best map on LAN just hours prior, Danil "donk" Kryshkovets decided the student was not to outshine the master as he kicked off the series with a show-stopping Dust2 performance.
He turned out a 2.43 rating on the opener after coming up clutch twice in the match with just a Deagle in his hands at first, an ace in round 11 that allowed Spirit to head over to the CT side with a lead, and a map-ending quad-kill in round 22.
On Mirage, the rest of the team around the phenom ensured the series would remain under Spirit's control, as the Russian side only lost three buy rounds beyond the pistol round and conversions.
A mouth-watering affair between Vitality and Spirit awaits in the quarter-finals, the first between the two sides in over four months, since Dan "apEX" Madesclaire and company shut down Spirit in the grand final of IEM Rio.
More highlights from Falcons vs. B8
Maksim 'kyousuke' LukinPast 3 months
Vitality
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
William 'mezii' Merriman
Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam
Dan 'apEX' MadesclairePast 3 months
Spirit
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev
Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets
Sergey 'hally' Shavaev
B8
Alexey 'alex666' Yarmoshchuk
Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyi
Artem 'kensizor' Kapran
Dmytro 'esenthial' Tsvir
Danylo 's1zzi' Vinnyk
Ivan 'maddened' Iordanidi
Danil 'donk' KryshkovetsPast 3 months
Spirit Academy
Vitaly 'VILBy' Zakharyuta
Kirill 'Kiryasoo' Solovkov
David 'Netrix' Kudziev
Nikita 's1nside' Besedin
Kirill 'k0gaSs' Emelyanov
Vladislav 'Flash_1' Bykov