Spirit became the first grand finalists of BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 2 after a hard-earned victory over FaZe.
At first, the heavy favorites looked in cruise control as they clinched a comfortable victory on their Dust2 pick, and went on to get off to a flying start on Cache.
However, Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken and company climbed out of the hole at a 1-6 deficit on their pick, which they had avoided in their previous match only to bring it out again.
They closed the gap at the end of the half and won back-and-forth forcebuy wars, in part thanks to a ridiculous Ryan "Neityu" Aubry Deagle triple, to close Cache comfortably on the preferred CT side, with David "frozen" Čerňanský coming alive after a slow start into the series.
It came down to Anubis, where FaZe went up 6-1 on the T side before Spirit came alive thanks to Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov finding impact on the AWP.
After FaZe won the second pistol and ran away to a 10-5 lead, Spirit's slow, methodical approach worked wonders as FaZe were kept in the dark about their plans late into rounds.
An aggressive move out of A finally broke Spirit's run, but another out of Connector in the following round was punished, and the Russian squad ultimately closed it 13-11, aided by a last-second bomb plant in the final round.
Danil "donk" Kryshkovets had entered the match averaging a 1.60 rating at Bounty, but was nowhere to be seen in Spirit's narrow win over FaZe.
Instead, it was sh1ro who led the way along with Boris "magixx" Vorobiev, who topped the board on Dust2, and Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia, who kept his team alive on Anubis.
The loss brings an end to FaZe's run at Bounty, where they continued their climb back into the tier-one invite circuit with a back-to-back top-four finish after XSE Pro League.
They are now ranked 13th on the preliminary VRS, just a few points shy off of direct invites to ESL Pro League and IEM Beijing, which will go out on August 3, and well within the invite range for FISSURE Playground 5.
Ryan 'Neityu' Aubry
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev
FaZe
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Jakub 'jcobbb' Pietruszewski
Jason 'JBOEN' Boe Nielsen
Niclas 'enkay J' Krumhorn
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets
Spirit
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev
Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets
Sergey 'hally' Shavaev