Spirit have survived their first bout in the Esports World Cup 2026 group stage lower bracket with a 2-0 victory over Luminosity, who are out in last place, with victories on Ancient (13-3) and Dust2 (19-16).
The Russian squad bounced back after an unexpected opening-day best-of-one loss to JiJieHao, and move on to the Group A lower-bracket semi-final where they will face BIG or G2 on Saturday.
The series kicked off on Ancient, Luminosity's pick, but the map was never contested, as Spirit got off to an early lead and didn't let go throughout, with Danil "donk" Kryshkovets winning several big clutches while the Lucas "lux" Meneghini-led squad only managed to win three rounds on the attack.
Spirit then took it with four quick rounds on the attack, and donk's heroics in the stomp were rewarded with a 2.08 rating and +15.07% round swing.
The second map was a far cry from the first, as Luminosity won the CT pistol round and took the lead early. Spirit didn't let up the pressure and tied it up four rounds in, a tie that stood until the switch.
Spirit broke ahead first in the second half, but Luminosity clawed their way back. Luminosity's biggest moment to tie it up came against four pistols and an AWP, but they ran straight into A, and a Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov triple kept Spirit ahead.
Despite losing the crucial round to sh1ro's AWP, Luminosity forced overtime and even had two map points of their own to force a decider before Spirit secured a second OT and went on to win it cleanly to close out the series.
BIG
Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz
Jon 'JDC' de Castro
Josef 'faveN' Baumann
Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer
Gleb 'gr1ks' Gazin
Sebastian 'xenn' Hoch
Lucas 'lux' MeneghiniPast 3 months
Luminosity
Aleks 'Rainwaker' Petrov
Aurimas 'Bymas' Pipiras
Aurélien 'afro' Drapier
Lucas 'lux' Meneghini
Oscar 'AZUWU' Bell
G2
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
Guy 'NertZ' Iluz
Artem 'r1nkle' Moroz
Nikita 'HeavyGod' Martynenko
Matúš 'MATYS' Šimko
Eetu 'sAw' Saha
Dmitry 'sh1ro' SokolovPast 3 months
JiJieHao
Hussein 'm1N1' Hijazi
Dionis 'sinnopsyy' Budeci
Bebu 'Bibu' Aadil
Aleksandar 'CacaNito' Kjulukoski
Osama '0SAMAS' Orabi
Torbjørn 'mithR' Nyborg
Spirit
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev
Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets
Sergey 'hally' Shavaev
Danil 'donk' KryshkovetsPast 3 months