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Spirit Are Now The Number One Team In CS2

fragster Radu M. 18. June 2024

Team Spirit started 2024 with high ambitions. Just one year ago, they were ranked 40 in the world. Then they signed donk and everything started to change. At the time, he was just 16 years old. But even at this young age, he looked capable of being the next s1mple.

After signing the now-famous player, Spirit’s first major success came at BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2023, which took place in December. There, they competed against FURIA Esports, MIBR, and Virtus.pro. Despite losing their group stage match against VP, they ended up winning 3 – 2 against them in the Grand Final.

After this result, people started to suspect that Spirit might be on their way to greatness but it wasn’t obvious at all at this point that they had the potential to become the number one team in CS2.

Then, just one week after winning BetBoom Dacha Dubai, Spirit made an important roster change. They benched ArtFr0st and signed one of the best players of 2021 (4th), 2022 (3rd), and 2023 (8th). With sh1ro on the roster, donk’s talent would become a lot more noticeable.

2024 Results

Initially, Team Spirit were weakened by the roster change because they needed time to fully integrate the new player. But by early February, they were ready to conquer the world.

Their breakaway moment came at IEM Katowice, where donk had one of the best individual performances in the history of Counter-Strike. Match after match, his rating 2.0 was off-the-charts. Because of this, Spirit not only won the tournament. They did it with an almost perfect map score: 11 W – 1 L.

The only team that managed to defeat them on one map out of three was Natus Vincere. Everyone else, including Team Falcons, FaZe Clan, and Complexity, did not stand a chance.

After this dominant victory, Spirit were now expected to win the Copenhagen Major. But in front of the massive Danish crowd, they choked. In the second stage of the tournament, they beat everyone quite easily. But the pressure of competing in front of a live audience was too much to handle. So, in the quarterfinals, FaZe Clan bested them 2 – 1.

After this result came another Grand Final, at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade. But Spirit lost again, most likely for the same reason. The score was 0 – 3 against MOUZ.

A 3rd – 4th place followed at IEM Dallas, where Team Vitality outclassed them in the semifinals. As before, Spirit easily won their group but started having problems on the big stage.

That, however, was no longer the case at BLAST Premier Spring Final, where they won both their group and the playoffs by defeating G2 Esports, Virtus.pro, Team Vitality, and Natus Vincere.

Thanks to this victory, Spirit climbed from 5th place to 1st place in the global rankings, and for the first time in their history, they are the number one team in CS2.

Header: Team Spirit