The second-best CSGO team in the world lost to an underdog at IEM Katowice 2021. It was a 16-1 loss and an equally impressive victory for Team Spirit.
Danish CS:GO giants, Astralis, suffered a heavy and embarrassing defeat against Team Spirit in the final round of the IEM Katowice Group Stage. Team Spirit won the series 2-1 with an unexpected 16-1 score on the third map of Dust 2.
Astralis is still in contention for the trophy but Team Spirit has exposed the Danish team’s weaknesses. IEM Katowice is now in its playoffs stage with the top six teams battling it out for a share of the million-dollar prize pool and bragging rights.
Team Spirit Demolish Astralis
The series started with a victory for the Danes on Inferno. Spirit brought back the series on Train and both teams looked set for a showdown on Dust 2. But what happened on the third and final map was a massive surprise for CS:GO fans and analysts alike.
The CIS team had a perfect CT half winning all fifteen rounds. Astralis managed a single bomb plant on their T-side. However, Team Spirit defused it to continue their win-streak on the CT side.
Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov, Nikolay "mir" Bityukov and Abdulkhalik "degster" Gasanov were the stars of the match with each player boasting an ADR above 100. Chopper had a 125.8 ADR with 20 kills and 5 assists on Dust 2. Astralis removed Nuke during the draft to pick Dust 2 as the final map. However, their 1-16 loss to Team Spirit does raise a few eyebrows.
Astralis did save face with the second pistol round win. It was a very close round where Degster almost managed an ace clutch, which would have resulted in landslide 16-0 defeat Danish superteam.
Team Spirit was one of the underdogs in Group A of IEM Katowice. The team qualified for IEM Katowice due to its ESL World Ranking. Team Spirit has had a great run through the group stage, taking down G2 esports, Heroic and now Astralis.
Related articles
What does This Loss Mean for Astralis?
The Team Spirit-Astralis match was the final round of the group stage. Both teams had already secured a slot in the playoffs. Team Spirit’s victory puts the CIS roster in the semi-finals while Astralis will face Virtus.Pro in the quarter-finals.
Astralis is still one of the favorites to win the tournament, but the series loss to Team Spirit makes things tougher. Astralis will have to go through Virtus.Pro and later Team Liquid to reach the grand finals of the tournament.
IEM Katowice kicked off on February 16 with twenty-four teams competing for a million-dollar prize pool. The winner receives $400,000 while the runners-up will go home with a $180,000 prize pool.
Featured Image Credit to ESL.
