Spirit are through to the BLAST Open Porto playoffs and will fly to the tournament's titular city to compete in the top six at the Super Bock Arena. The Russian squad secured their playoff berth with a 2-0 victory over G2 on Dust2 (13-6) and Cache (13-9).
The series kicked off on Spirit's pick of Dust2, and the EWC champions dominated on the T side, easily taking sites and forcing G2 to try and save what weapons they could, round after round.
Spirit exploded six bombs in a row, turning a 0-3 start to a 6-3 lead, and then won three more rounds by elimination to extend that lead to six at the half, 9-3.
The Boris "magixx" Vorobiev-led squad then hit double digits after the switch, and although G2 won the second round of the half and consecutively added two more to their tally, Spirit closed it out dominantly in gun rounds, 13-6.
Matúš "MATYS" Šimko got a pistol triple with the USP to kick off G2's defense on their Cache pick, but once again Spirit were a level above and quickly imposed their will to an 8-4 lead at the half.
Danil "donk" Kryshkovets turned it up to 11 right after G2 tried to kickstart their offense by winning a round with deagles, as he kicked off the following round with two frags in a lineup through a smoke in Mid before acing with three kills on B to put his team ahead, 11-6.
Spirit then ran a counter-boost on Mid, and donk peeked right as two G2 players were ready to line up grenades, shutting the round down before it started and getting his team to match point, 12-7.
Three rounds later, Spirit punched their ticket to the playoffs, closing out Cache 13-9 to erase any chance of G2 pushing the map to overtime.
G2 are not out of the running yet despite the loss, and can still fight for their spot at the Super Bock Arena, as this was their first defeat in the group stage. They will play the winner of Natus Vincere vs. paiN next in the Group A lower bracket semi-final on Sunday.
It's also not the end of the road for Spirit at the BLAST Studio in Copenhagen, as they are slated to play the M80 vs. FURIA winner in the Group A upper bracket final for seeding in the playoffs.
G2
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
Guy 'NertZ' Iluz
Artem 'r1nkle' Moroz
Nikita 'HeavyGod' Martynenko
Matúš 'MATYS' Šimko
Eetu 'sAw' Saha
paiN
Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira
Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt
Guilherme 'piriajr' Barbosa
Rafael 'saffee' Costa
João 'snow' Vinicius
Henrique 'rikz' Waku
Matúš 'MATYS' ŠimkoPast 3 months
Spirit
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev
Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets
Sergey 'hally' Shavaev
M80
Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich
Michael 'Swisher' Schmid
Elias 's1n' Stein
Josh 'JBa' Barutt
Mason 'Lake' Sanderson
Rory 'dephh' Jackson
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
Boris 'magixx' VorobievPast 3 months
FURIA
Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo
Yuri 'yuurih' Santos
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato
Danil 'molodoy' Golubenko
Sid 'sidde' Macedo
Danil 'donk' KryshkovetsPast 3 months