by Team Spirit closed out the season with a dominant victory in the grand final of the BLAST Premier Spring Final, where the world number five accounted for Natus Vincere 3-1 (13-9, 13-9, 4-13, 13-6) in a best-of-five series.
After both teams qualified for the semi-finals by winning their respective groups during the group stage, Spirt and NaVi took the stage in the OVO Arena in London in front of a packed crowd of Counter-Strike fans.
.@TEAM__SPIRIT ARE YOUR SPRING FINAL CHAMPIONS PRESENTED BY @REVOLUTAPP ?? #BLASTPremier pic.twitter.com/ODv6RT81R4
— BLAST Premier ?? (@BLASTPremier) June 16, 2024
The series kicked off on Ancient, which was picked by Spirit, and it was the Russian squad that sprinted ahead to claim the first six rounds and take a 10-2 lead at halftime on their terrorist side.
However, NaVi found their feet after halftime and came roaring back to 9-11, but it would be an eco-round where Spirit claimed an unlikely victory to secure a map point before closing out the map in the following round.
On NaVi’s pick of Dust2, Spirit started strong again, as they won the opening five rounds before NaVi picked up their first.
Going into halftime, the map was evenly placed at 7-5 in the favour of Spirit, with Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov and Danil “donk” Kryshkovets leading the way.
Unfortunately for the Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen-led squad, they would make a comeback in the second half to level the scoreline at 9-apiece but would go on to lose the next four rounds and go down 0-2 in the series.
With their tournament lives on the line, Natus Vincere headed to Spirit’s second map pick of Mirage, and it was do-or-die for the world number six.
Whatever Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy said to his team in between maps two and three appeared to have resonated with the squad, as NaVi came out firing early and won the first nine rounds before taking a 10-2 halftime lead following a near-flawless counter-terrorist side.
It only took the Copenhagen Major champions five rounds to close out the map and take the series score to 2-1 heading into their map pick of Nuke.
Although NaVi opened with a 3-1 lead on their terrorist side, it would be donk and Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia that would pull Spirit back into the contest and secure a hard-fought 7-5 halftime advantage.
That momentum continued for Spirit, and they only needed seven rounds to close out the series with a 13-6 scoreline on the fourth and final map.
BLAST Premier Spring Final MVP ???? pic.twitter.com/ULqtwOIUuK
— Team Spirit (@Team__Spirit) June 16, 2024
Following an ultra-consistent tournament where he averaged a 1.33 rating, donk was awarded the HLTV Most Valuable Player at the Spring Final as he topped the charts in the following categories: Average Damage per Round (92.8), Kills Per Round (0.88) and Impact (1.45).
In both of Team Spirit’s tournament victories at IEM Katowice and the Spring Final, donk has claimed the MVP, and even though he is only 17 years old, donk continues to impress not only his fans but his peers with his outstanding performances.
