Team Spirit survive G2 scare: BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024

G2 and Team Spirit are two of the CS2 teams attending the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024. The international and the CIS powerhouses, respectively, battled one another in the first round of Group B on June 12.

Spirit secured a spot in the event's playoffs after defeating G2, while G2 will have to play an elimination match next.

Here's everything you need to know about how Spirit defeated G2 in BLAST Premier Spring Final.

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For this match, G2 didn't have their superstar Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov as he got the visa last-minute and is still collecting his passport. The head coach and Counter-Strike legend Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas stood in during m0NESY's absence. As for Spirit, they had their full lineup for this match.

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Although everybody expected Spirit to dominate on their own map pick, it was quite the opposite. The Russian team never really got their T-side going as G2 had versatile defensive setups and more importantly, they rarely let TaZ on his own to defend an entire bombsite.

The head coach turned emergency stand-in actually held his own and even got some decent kills, such as these crisp headshots in the first pistol round.

G2's strong CT side guaranteed them a comfortable 8-4 advantage coming to the second half and they didn't drop the ball. Just when Spirit were starting to get some momentum going, G2's in-game leader HooXi got a double-entry with his Tec-9 and closed the map 13-8. NiKo was undoubtedly the best player on the map as he got 25 kills and finished with nearly 120 ADR.

Though G2 enjoyed a good start on Dust 2 off the back of a pistol round win on the T-side, Spirit were quick to put a stop to that. The Russians stole the third round with just a Scout and pistols and never really looked back. Spirit's CT-side were so good that they only conceded two more rounds to G2 in the first half.

It looked like G2 would react on the defense after TaZ won a marvelous one-versus-one clutch against sh1ro in the pistol round, however, they gave Spirit too much space to work with and saw the Russians tie the series with a convincing 13-7 victory.

NiKo fell off on Dust 2 and only got eight frags, while sh1ro had a much better game in comparison to Ancient and topped the scoreboard with 19 frags.

Once again G2 got the pistol round, but as soon as Spirit had the best guns to work with on the CT-side, they purely dominated G2 on Anubis. TaZ tried his best to keep the great vibes and even teased donk after they won a round, but ultimately, his side had no chance against Spirit after the upset win on Ancient.

Spirit only conceded four rounds on the defense, despite Anubis favoring the T-side nowadays. And when they played on the offense themselves, there was nothing G2 could do to stop them. The Russians won the map by 13-4, thus didn't lose any rounds as Terrorists, off the back of a masterclass from sh1ro.

The AWPer shined again and finished with 23 frags in just 17 rounds. Donk did his part too in the fragging department as he got 15 himself. Spirit's victory means they'll face Virtus.pro tomorrow for a spot in the semifinals, while G2 will hope m0NESY arrive in time for the elimination game against Vitality.

That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more BLAST Premier Spring Final coverage.