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to be a part of this. Good
morning. Welcome to our final
day of blast bounty presented
by poly market here in Malta
out grand finalists on the
horizon to teens left mouse and
spirit one of them getting to
lift the trophy in just a couple
of hours who knows what our
best five has installed for us
believing into it. I know for a
fact, it's going to be a lot of
fun on this desk. I'm going to
two weeks. It's actually been great. It's awesome that we're finishing this one in Malta because
people don't know some of the Odyssey was actually filmed in Malta. Was it actually? Yeah, yeah,
some of the clips that they actually filmed on were around Malta and it has been a journey for
some of the favorites to make it here to the Grand Finals. Yeah, this is going to be a very
interesting one. I think we've got two teams that we expected in the Grand Final, but we didn't
expect them to get here the way they did. So we're seeing two teams that are a bit shaky.
It'll be a very close game. Whilst I've loved the journey that the two teams have taken to get
I've just loved everything that we've gotten to experience with the Blast Bounty format.
The fact that you're having these high seeds up against low seeds being pushed to the limits,
having a lot of tests kind of put in front of them, that's what has made Blast Bounty
so such a different start and a unique start to the season here.
Yeah, we didn't see too many surprising picks.
I wish we had seen the pick of Spirit from Astralis.
Would have been interesting to see how that one went down, but we do see in the middle of the pack
the pack. A lot of interesting veto choices. Unfortunately, going to the final, there's
there's no pick to be made here. It's just going to be miles against spirit. Map picks,
but we'll get there. Early stages, I would say that there were a couple curveball picks.
I think teams that are picking based off of just matchups that they wanted, ones that
they thought the vetoes would be a little bit more favorable on. And it actually, it
panned out for some of those teams. We could stand here and we could talk about all of
the matchups that have happened over the last two weeks in case you didn't get to see them all,
but instead we've wrapped it up nicely for you guys to get all of the key moments of our Blast Bounty.
Three players in from Squeaky, it's another double, killing everybody on the scenes.
The first 2-0 versus Vitality in quite some time.
Koala, late arrival, and it all falls on Cacerono's answer, but there he is.
Dendalee, eliminate Furia.
CTR slides right through, caught out by Torji, and so still winnable for Mount.
Oh, he's dead.
16 seconds, and it's safe with the AWP again.
Three kills, make it four.
The eighth at the end there for safe.
A fantastic way to answer the questions.
Doesn't like the look of that one.
He's just gonna be out there.
Whoa, okay, two quick headshots with the famas over delivery.
Oh, that's just ridiculous.
Plays in the open ground,
and the flashbang from Tenier helps out perfectly.
Shiro on the scene.
Donk delivers.
First give him the non-edge here on the positioning.
Joko, right now.
They're ready to party here.
Donk impositioned around the side with the toys.
Turn to the door.
You're a show.
Oh, no way.
The must win round.
Naito delivers per face.
Not a single round dropped.
Outside.
Outside, brothers.
This is crazy.
Sontek and Shiro remain.
Naito finally dealt with.
Spirit, avoid the upset.
And Puzi slides immediately into it.
Specs win one for the road.
We will get what we expected.
Spirit versus Mous.
I want to know your top 3 most memorable teams that did not make it to a semifinals.
So I'm allowing those quarterfinal teams in the conversation, but semifinals is my cutoff.
This is a really tough one, because all of the favorites made it.
We discussed this at the beginning.
The top eight teams all made it to the last one in a row.
Not Clive.
Not Clive.
So number one, Vitality.
You've got to have Vitality in there.
I remember a den-delay game.
I remember a den-delay game.
And I remember 100 Thieves gives me overperformance.
OK, I remember these three teams.
They're not the maybe not the top three teams that missed it.
But they're they're memorable.
They're memorable.
I did say memorable.
They didn't have to be the top three teams.
just the most memorable. Okay, I'm gonna take you took some good ones there. I was gonna use
Dendeley for sure. They surprised me a lot. I have to go with Liquid then, of course.
Unfortunate that they had to meet up with Spirit in the quarterfinals. I'm definitely
looking forward to the rest of their season. I'm also gonna go with Focus actually. I thought that
I thought I didn't know what to expect when they lost to Jor-Co, but it actually we're
able to win that first game versus Aurora, which was kind of a slept on upset from the first round
I didn't think that the French friendship was going to actually propel them to get some nice wins in the I guess in the online portion of this one.
But now I have to pay attention to them again, and I didn't think I was going to have to when the season started.
I'm going to be honest, every single game 3D Max played, I was ready for them to lose.
That's what I mean. I was thinking that was going to happen, but they upended some expectations there.
Well, there was one team that you guys mentioned that we would have to look back on, of course, 100 thieves being the main cause of the game.
the game. They were able to
win the game. Of course, 100
thieves being the main
corporate there because they
set in motion what ended up
being some of the biggest
upsets that we had had in
round one of a blast bounding.
It started off with them being
able to get the win up against
Falcons, right? Falcons didn't
even make it through round one
coming out of that player break
off of the back of winning the
major for themselves to and not
only that, but the games were
the game. But the last one
was the biggest surprise.
Dave's Matt pick. This was
gives me calling a fantastic
game. This was Falcons not
showing up maybe to the level
that you're expecting. This
wasn't as big of an upset as
vitality losing. I don't think
especially because Falcons came
off the major when sometimes
you come in a little slow to
the next season. But
certainly a surprise
regardless. The biggest
surprise for me is that rain
played so well in this single
said job done. He had a revenge arc. He knew the people on the other side of this over there.
And he said, no, I've got to show these guys what's up still. Rain doesn't get out of bed
for a standard online for a new leader, Tigers, E03 to qualify for anything else. He only gets
out of bed for majors and major champions. I feel like that's too good list to two good
reasons to be able to get out of bed. But you did mention as well, you thought the vitality
upset was a bigger one. Why exactly though? I mean, Falcons were the major champions.
You're expecting coming off of a defeat in the major that maybe vitality is going to be practicing a little earlier on
They had some time off maybe a couple days extra over Falcons
They have the hunger you expect them to have the hunger that beast inside them to beat a liquid that has just made some big changes
I mean changing the IGL that's a massive difference in the way you're gonna play the game
And they still couldn't beat liquid even in one map. I don't think they ate breakfast together
the other. That's my take away from that one. I'm more impressed though by how
Liquid was able to pull that off with Jorco playing extremely well with the
fact that Elise just looks like he is totally back now that he's in tandem with
JT and the fact that JT also is already revamping the map pool for a Liquid
team that I would say last season no home map. I don't even think they had a
secondary home map. There was really no map pool. It was a puddle in fact. Another
memorable team or notable team being eliminated that we've talked about
about the the Dandelion furia matchup as well in round one.
It's just insane to think how many of those top teams ended up
having big upsets towards them not being able to show up.
And this was a furia Maui that had talked about training or
like practicing a little extra longer than every other team in
that top.
Think nearly two weeks.
Yeah, that's a concern.
I love that.
Yackindar has been watching this event and tweeting about how
much he misses playing on land.
I kind of thought to myself, oh yeah, did Furia take off the
first match or something?
Did they decide to skip it?
No, you had a chance.
You could have been here, Hecordar.
You could have played yourself to this tournament.
One thing, though, that I have to say I love about Dendeley,
MaxCorp was not on my radar.
I did not.
Like, there was Koala on this team, RdN's out,
some other names I'd heard kind of worrying about
in the sort of Brazilian space.
MaxCorp stole the show for me in this one.
The AWPing prowess he had, how aggressive he was against Furia.
He made Furia totally uncomfortable the entire game.
It's super impressive.
The problem is, he wasn't on my radar before that game,
and he fell off my radar immediately following that game.
They had one more game immediately after.
He didn't perform nearly the same way he did against Furia.
And it was, what, 10 hours later?
The drop-off in 10 hours was really good.
No, no, that's not fair.
Have you ever played a game for, let's say,
three hours or whatever?
It was a pretty intensive series for themselves
and then had a turnaround time of less than 10 hours
and been performing at that level again?
They did it to themselves, but I'm just defending it.
I've done you one better.
I've played a premier game, and then
slept for four hours, and then played another premier game.
And I think that is about the same as playing
an important game.
We've all aged cute after that one loss.
So in many ways, I've been in those shoes, actually.
Show, show, show, show.
Well, either way, I'm important when
we didn't get to see that trajectory continue
for themselves as amazing as a round one performance was.
The only teams really having phenomenal performances
for themselves here at Bloss Bounty, presented
by Colleen Muckett, is Spirit and Maaz.
Now, again, they've taken two very different parts here
to the grand final.
Our games will be starting very soon,
but we've got to head to a break first.
When we come back to it, we'll break it all down
and hop you guys up.
What is our grand final?
MUSIC
If you mult these words on flashcards,
if you did it your best shot, go through these dog by one
and try and guess how it's pronounced.
Have a little guess as to what you think it may mean.
MUSIC
I shall pair her...
Huh?
Bir kir kara.
Bir kir kara. Bir kir kara.
I have no clue.
Maybe it's something related to weather, maybe?
It's a face. One of the largest faces.
Here in Malta.
Ah, right. No chance.
Okay, then the next one is...
Next one is this.
Um...
Zurich.
Zurich
Zurich?
Zurich?
Zurich, no?
Zurich
Zurich
Zurich
Okay
It might be a place as well
It's just sitting near the sea
Next to the world
Oh, it's getting tough
And Jotta
There will be like Aliotta
Aliotta
I think like it's probably like some city or like
What does it mean?
It's a fish soup.
It's a fish soup.
Fish soup?
Im karat? Im karat.
Im karat.
Im ayat.
Im ayat.
The queue is not...
It's a ur.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
For me, it seems like it's some...
like a dish.
It's like a...
It's a pastry.
It's a sweet pastry.
Pastry.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Pfff.
Pfff.
Pfff.
Pfff.
Pfff.
Giddy-diddy-puk-u.
Giddy?
Gidgy-fuck-u?
Or?
Chiv-chip-wok-u.
Chiv-chip-wok-u?
Chiv-chip-wok-u?
Wok.
I am...
I have no chance.
It's fireworks which are put on the streets.
Ah.
Fireworks?
Chiv-chip-wok-u.
Chiv-chip-wok-u.
Chiv-chip-wok-u.
streets. Firebox. Chif-chip-poku. Okay. The last one. So, pizza. Is it right? No. Where
It's gonna be like kuchiya.
Kuchiya.
Kuchiya.
Ah, ah, ah.
J is not...
I see, with the dots, it's a che.
Che.
I think it's some dish, certain dish.
That's when a baby has his first birthday.
It's about a few things, like a room there, a tent.
It's like a tradition.
It's like a tradition.
Okay.
What they're very good at is what they become in kuchiya.
Computer mouse.
Yeah, yeah.
Or computer.
Do you think this might be an easier game than what you faced up against FaZe?
Do you feel like Maus is a team that's very suited to the playstyle of Spirit?
Yes and yes, but as I always say, you can lose to anyone, it just depends on you.
If you come inside the game and just start playing like you did against FaZe, we can
We can lose to anyone and mouse is certainly the team that we can lose to so it can happen
You haven't lost to them. Oh, yeah, does that not maybe put you in a different mindset?
I'll put the team in a different mindset, maybe not you specifically
I think it puts them in a different mindset and that's beneficial to us
Well, of course that they have dismounted as many times
I think the last three or four times they want to zero with convincing no double-digit maps
So they definitely have our number the multiple of our numbers even I we switched numbers and they still have it
But yeah, it's all it is. They have a good understanding of how we play.
Today we will try our best to change that, that they feel different.
But only time will tell if that will actually happen.
Today we're going into it, trying to play our best, take maps from them, take rounds from them round at the time,
see what we can do and just keep improving.
For us, if we're playing Grand Final, of course there's the pressure of the Grand Final.
I would be lying to you if there wouldn't be.
But at the same time, I think that we are pretty happy with where we are at the tournament at the moment, finishing top two in our first tournament together.
And we will take this game definitely as an experience.
Zashran giving me a little bit of a whiplash there because it felt like he was more than aware of this.
That's a bad spirit against them.
How it feels like this isn't really a fair matchup if you looked at that history.
But then again, bringing us back to reality,
this is the first event for this five-man lineup.
And worst case, they get second place.
That's pretty good view.
Yeah, I think you can't complain, especially
with the shakiness that they showed online,
with the fact they're changing positions.
They talked about Spinks and Torji
having a tough time coming into this event.
So coming second, even if they don't talk spirit,
if they can pick up a map, they make it close.
I think they'll be content, if not happy,
about the losing in the final.
After the first round one of matchups,
when Furia fell, Vitality, Falcons, all of them fell.
This immediately became Spirit's tournament to lose.
For Maus on the other hand,
they probably looked at a lot of those big names and said,
ooh, when are we gonna have to fight one of them?
Well, thankfully it's actually in the grand finals
when they finally face an elite team.
So in terms of just results and position,
this already went about as well as you could have expected.
I just feel like they're on two sort of different
trajectories though, because when I look back
to that round number one, and we started seeing teams,
like we keep saying Falcons Vitality Fury fall from themselves or Aurora as well spirit could have been one of those teams remember they went to overtime up against OG a map three as well like they were all these things that were falling into place where we weren't even sure what sort of form spirit was on then they sort of level up a little bit more and then they have the performance they did yesterday I'm wondering if
if Maus can put aside the fact that they've lost seven series in a row to Spirit,
that they're 15 and two against them in maps as well,
then I feel like we're at a good starting point, right, Boo?
I think the only series that Spirit got out of comfortably was Liquid.
Every other series they played at this event, they could potentially have lost.
I mean, they looked impressive in some of their map threes, especially,
but against FaZe, 10-5 down.
That could have been a 13-5 if things had gone a slightly different way.
this is a spirit team. We can talk about trajectory, but at this event they have
looked shaky. They've changed some roles coming into the season. Certainly this is
a mouse that could make a big difference in the way that they're viewed in this
matchup. For spirit in this one, the reason I feel like it's a little bit
closer than the name value in the record show is just because of that. Because
spirit has been very rocky coming into it. We've seen what it looks like when they
power up versus liquid, which is the team that I feel like they took the most
seriously that they had the most prep time to actually game plan for, but I was kind
of surprised that they didn't just keep running with it at land because that phase game was
also extremely rocky, the fact that you're 10-5 down, the fact that you're facing elimination
there, that is not what I expected from Spirit, and so I have to believe that Maus, they've
got revenge on their mind here, they've seen a vulnerable Spirit, and I kind of hope for
Maus' sake they pulled it off because we're one day removed from the one year anniversary
where Cologne was spoiled by Spirit, where they were mouse,
they beat Vitality in the semifinals.
It felt like they achieved what nobody else could,
and then they fell to this exact team.
That's hard then to sort of go over that hurdle
to be able to mentally push that aside as well,
but it's gonna feel even more gratifying
if that does happen.
However, both teams looking at their star players
in who have shown up for Blast, Bownie, Tauzy, Donk,
where are you guys sitting here?
Do you think that would be your personal MVPs,
not necessarily the event MVP?
I still think it's possible that Gaurd could break the event and VP's statistical record.
It's theoretically, technically, physically possible.
By the fact that if you took, what, five of his best maps ever and strung them all together,
yes, but that would mean Spirit would have to lose a couple maps.
Well, one of his best maps ever was at this event.
You could have it happen again. This could have. It's unlikely.
I actually think Torgie has looked really incredible coming into this grand final.
The problem I have for Torzie if we're talking MVP is his history against Spirit. We talked about the matchup
We talked spirits beating mouths very consistently. This is one of Torzie's worst teams statistically to play against
He's got a 0.83 over the last 12 months against this team. It's gonna be very hard for him to maintain the stats
He's already found well
I'll raise you the fact that Torzie's last MVP was in Malta
It was three years ago
But it was on this island that he was able to pull it off also caveat
it was in CSGO. So it's been an awful long time since we've seen him reach these sites, but I really think that Torsi, for whatever reason, after the
play-art break, he went from being sort of this fit into the system cog of mouse, and now he's really been the driving force in their matches.
I don't know, I'm starting to enjoy the narrative of maybe the multi-magic there. Who cares how long ago it was?
Maybe it was in a different version of Counter-Strike at the end of the day.
It could still be lingering for him, but with the best of five, the biggest question is, what maps are we going to see?
more importantly, what are we not going to see?
Alvino here coming out and more often than not in a best of five, we do wonder what is going to
be the starting map, who is going to be able to get that advantage for themselves and hopefully a
secured first map. It's not going to be Uninferno or Anubis here. Pretty typical for the Bans here,
for Spirit they're tried and tested. Bread and butter map has been dust too. I'd be
It goes anywhere other than that.
Now, for me, Vu, I think Maus have a bit of an option here.
I think Mirage is where Spirit have looked the most vulnerable.
But Nuke could also be a pick.
Yeah, I mean, if you're talking about picking into Maus' strengths,
you're picking a Nuke.
If you're picking into Spirit's weaknesses, I think you're picking a Mirage.
Okay.
They go for the Mirage.
I'm not against that pick.
Yeah, I feel like that is just recognizing when you've seen Spirit play
that their T-sides can really take a long time to get going.
I don't always think that the CT side defense,
side defense especially towards the side away from dog is always the strongest.
And this is an ancient pick coming out of spirit. I think that one makes sense.
You would have probably predicted miles would ban that if this was the best of
three. And then now's have to go new. I mean, unless they're really shaky,
they have to go for new. Okay. Yeah.
So unfortunately for the fans,
the only way we're going to get cash is if it goes the full distance here.
I mean, obviously I hope it happens.
I want to see all the countershock possible today. I got nothing better to do.
I would love to see a cash. Unfortunately. I don't think we're getting
3-0 and dog breaks his MVT. Oh
Statistical record. Geez
Look, you're still riding that high bill. I'm gonna sit in the other camp
And I'm hoping you guys can give some more of the mouse fans out there a little bit of support for that one too because right now
Now's are coming in as the underdog
But I do think that there is a lot in the tank for them, right?
We've been seeing them warm up for themselves to getting a little bit more comfortable
But to begin on dust, too, is this a little bit of what just hoping they pushed through and the mentality isn't too broken?
Especially after last night's dust too where we saw they just
It's two times now in a row. They just can't hold the B bomb site
How you have to figure out a way to hold the B bomb site and I don't think they've had enough time off to actually remedy that situation
No, I definitely don't I feel like that's just been the biggest talking point is the sphinx PR relationship how it's been
and untenable almost the way that they can't really seem to find a harmony in terms of how often can Spinks go away from the site so we can try to find some picks towards middle or towards a underpass at tunnels or does he have to actually sit on the bomb site with him.
There was even a moment yesterday when they were holding triple B with Torsi deciding he needed to help as well and they still lost it so it just simply hasn't been pretty and so Spirit obviously identified that as a weak point.
Even coming down to how they ended up winning that map, it was because Astralis
figured they had to go away from B eventually. They just over thought it. Yeah, it's like it keeps working
It can't keep working and that's sometimes the hardest task with an IGL with realizing like no
Maybe we can just keep going. The problem is it would have kept working. I think it would have I think it would have
Well, then there's been a little bit of time maybe not enough time that you guys are saying this
Would you need to have more more emphasis on sphinx doing something to be able to remedy remedy the B site more?
or are you hoping a little bit more comes out of PR because he's online was great. And right now his land has been lackluster. Not bad. Just lackluster.
There's definitely a heavy weight put on Spinks, but PR does have to be better. He's talked about being uncomfortable in some positions.
If you look at him across maps, the maps where he's an anchor, Dust 2, you've got him on B, Mirage, you have him as an anchor, you have him on Ancient as an anchor.
These are all maps he underperforms on heavily. And not all of these include Spinks as the rotator.
it's true I I would like to see Spinks be able to just sometimes lock it down
and it's very weird because Spinks can be such a skilled player when he's
catching people in transition he has a great mindset for timings on when he
can push and I feel like sometimes he's either helping too much with mid or not
enough towards the bomb site but I don't actually see a lot of tunnels
aggression but that's actually something that a couple teams have used
against Spirit where they are just testing Zontics towards be tunnels a
little bit more and I'd say why not you know zontics has been kind of meddling
usually at the bottom of the scoreboard spurt for spirit and if he's gonna be
the one lurker over there to try to hold that side of it I don't I don't see a
reason why spinks and PR don't think they can take the fight in sometimes I
mean I do know that PR talked to James Banks a little bit before this and
give us some more insight on how he's feeling about us to very likely we will
see some dust to play today I know you were maybe not so happy with it in terms
of new role getting used to everything, but would you say that you made some improvements
in yesterday's game compared to the one against 2D Max?
Uh, I did, yeah.
Yeah?
That's it.
Yeah.
That's it.
You put a lot of focus onto your Dust2?
I, a lot of focus, yes.
A lot of focus on your Dust2.
And then tell me this then, how is your mentality coming into this series when you're facing
a much stronger competition than anyone else you've faced so far in this tournament and
and how ready you could be for that, because we know they also love Dust2.
They also love Dust2, it's true.
I mean, I think it's a little bit easier for me because it's the first game we are underdogs,
you know, when I'm used to this, being an underdog.
So maybe I have even less pressure now on my shoulders,
and maybe I might be more relaxed, I might take maybe more risks.
So I actually feel pretty good.
Maybe I would say even better than yesterday.
good I would say so yeah as I said no pressure and we play what we were playing for the last
20 days.
And also lastly how nice is it for you to have someone like Zelex by the side of you
because he seems to be full of energy and very positive in all moments of the game.
Yeah he's good, he's a good guy, he's funny, young energy, I like it.
really scary Dust 2 team.
You could argue they're the best in the world at this map.
And they're really powering up into this one
with some of the role changes,
putting players in better positions
for their style of gameplay
to actually perform at the highest level.
So much of Spirit in other maps
is can Donk hard carry them?
Can Shiro clean things up?
But for me, Spirit, this Dust 2 is clearly their home map
because they are actually a well-oiled machine.
We have a round to look at
for just how great their T side can actually look,
where it's not just the one man show
that they do use pieces of misdirection,
that they actually are on top of the meta
and what teams are trying to do nowadays.
Because in this round versus FaZe yesterday,
opening gun round, corridor smokes,
Magix is able to sneak out middle,
he's able to work his way into CT spawn,
getting the pick onto Twist,
who doesn't know which direction to look,
and that just flusters the defense immensely from FaZe,
who don't know which way to look.
J-Bowen's trying to cover that CT angle,
and that's when Shiro finds the perfect time to strike,
And so they are so crafty, and they are actually,
look at how they're playing off of each other too on elbow.
It's not just one guy running out by himself.
All of this works in tandem to be one of the strongest execs
you'll ever see from Spirit, map of agnostic.
So this is just such a tough task for a mouse team
that has already been struggling so much
on their defensive path.
I'm happy to see you bring about a phase round in this one
because phase do the same thing that mouse do.
They leave their B site player quite alone
so that they can fight in mid.
And that's the type of setup from Spirit,
that can really punish teams
that want to be having a player
close in CT. They want to have
the B player or their second B
player off of B fighting towards mid.
They did a fantastic job of dealing
with that when they were fighting
against phase and Mao's play a very
similar style from a macro perspective.
Knowing how good dust two is for
spirit seeing so many instances of rounds
like that this wasn't a standalone.
It wasn't like this was just the
one good round more and more like this.
It brings back the question Maui
that we're seeing your second coach
being fit into the system here for
spirit and it was briefly mentioned by Boo there, but Sofik, what's he bringing to the
table because bigger words like micro and macro being used, but what does that actually
entail for them?
What you end up seeing is that when Sofik first came in for the, in the stead of Holly
at IEM Rio and PGL Astana, their flash assist just went up tremendously.
You're seeing so much more supportive utility that is aiding people like Donk.
For Donk, it is just such a luxury to have easy fights.
He doesn't really get that many of those.
so frequently is just going toe-to-toe with the best other entry fraggers in the world
and has to just rely purely on his mechanics or hopes he maybe catches a timing.
But now, with Sofix's input, the amount of kills he's getting while opponents are flashed
has just skyrocketed along with all of the rest of Spirit players.
So there's so much more cognizant of how they can help out their outfellow teammates with
utility.
If you go back to the origins of Donk, he was doing exactly what you're saying, peeking
out, beating players one-to-one, straight up duels.
Now he's got so much utility support. He's got so much help from his team. There's a reason at Astana he was by far the player with the most kills on flashed opponents. That's the change the Saatfig brought into the roster.
Well, it feels like everything good comes in twos. Two coaches, two great teams on stage, two great analysts standing beside me, but also two great costas, Scrony and Laundice.
So smooth.
Well, if that's the case, where's the second great host,
Matt, because you guys killed it in the pregame.
Appreciate your thoughts.
Well put, coming into this one, obviously,
the head-to-head in the history of these two teams,
very much skewed spirit.
It starts on a difficult map for the side of Maus,
and that is why our polymarket prediction
is skewed so far towards this spirit victory today.
But it's the season's first best of five.
There's not much room to get creative in a best of five veto, but I'd say for Spirit, it's just perfect that they get Dust 2 first.
Like if Maus are going to learn any lessons today or the roughest map today is probably going to be their first one.
Now it's time to hammer in Dust 2.
You want your weapon first, huh?
You also get Spirit, who are a team that really ride on momentum, like mood and everything like that.
If they play well on Dust 2, that can definitely set them up for a strong series to follow up with some recent results.
because, well, we have questions about their form at the moment.
Interestingly enough, it's more about Donk's individual form.
Um, the Upside's definitely Shiro into Nier.
Well, Spirit know what they want, and that's the instant attack into the Beast's site.
PR in Spinks.
This chemistry is something we've discussed throughout the week.
Donk is alive, so...
Don't think it's over just yet, but that flashbang...
Oh, no, wait!
Asurchin comes through, doesn't get the kills.
Torsi's got the answer back, but donkey is still here with his 58 health and as that smoke on door will fade
What's he gonna do about this? It's actually very I want to say dangerous situation for the CTs because there is the
World where a dog leaves the site. There is a world where he peaked something. There's a world where he fake plants like that
And they make their move
He's gonna play out there nicely done. Zelex walks in. I like that close the grounded on him
But I mean, is this indicative of what Spirit's game plan will be?
Instantly testing that awkward at times B bomb site. Yes, but they always run the risk of it not working
So if like in this situation, they don't get the win they shoulder game plan right away, but they also do get
Stinks and PR a kill a piece which actually on average is better than any of their holds in the past
Then look at look at how they feel they survive like what should be the biggest test of the entire series
On this map in this site
One pistol win and we think mouths are off
I'm sure the stress of the thought of just getting just overwhelmed out of the gate
It's a real threat when you go up against spirit
Now I'll say just make sure you convert
All right
They didn't get that plant so
The dog has a deagle
Crazy things happen.
Don't just a regular average normal guy these days.
Izzy?
Just one of us now?
Izzy, really?
I thought maybe he was some kind of like cybernetically augmented solution to Zywoo, the Valve-made
Test 2 baby.
Sea of Magics and everybody there after.
So as you can anticipate, no bomb plant, no buys, no tools for the job except for that
Desert Eagle that now finds itself in Shiro's hands and Torji knows I probably shouldn't
die here.
He's got a smoke, the flash, the Kevlar that he'd all have to buy back so let Shiro in
In this next 25 seconds, squirm all he wants.
Torgie gets it in the end, and the 2-0 secured.
Big question around Torgie's stats, not just at this event,
but in this head-to-head particularly.
Vu made sure to note that up against Spirit as an opponent,
his stats do drop off to a scary degree as well.
So for somebody who has been a big part
of your driving force of success this week,
let's hope for Torgie's sake that it's not in his head
as he goes up against his makers.
First gun round for Spirit, third round in.
What's the move?
You have to take that first round loss of the chin,
think about the rest of the map.
Give a bit of credence now to Maus.
Passed their first test.
That door position here from Donk, the banks asked PR if he had improved after yesterday
on Dust2 on B site.
He said, I did.
It did feel like there is a little bit more there, but also mentioned as it obviously
barely played any amount of CS with this team so far.
Just hoping to do what they have been practicing for the 20 days they've been together.
This is enough to deal with Don. Cershin will win the duel, even with the FOMAS.
And those flashes interrupt the extension, so Teneir's just stuck there on a plate.
They get gobbled up on the attack into the A site five versus two looking very comfortable from mouse
Smoke grenade to cut off the CT roadside. So it's just gonna be this PR spinks duo inside B and PR is off with nothing
Spinks trade quick Zell X pushes smoke all's good for mouse one loss in this round
You absolutely take that versus the first gun test from Spirit. I
Think this is what we're all sort of worried about seeing today if if spirit and the plane like they did yesterday
I mean, the fact that Mount suddenly have odds, I mean, the thought that they could actually win this series is an exciting crossback, especially considering they've just picked up PR, but it would be a combination of them being able to take down Spirit, which is impressive, but them taking down a Spirit who are not in the same form as they were even just like a month ago, like clearly a lot more off.
Four times. Yesterday's semi-final is only the fourth time Spirit won a series with Gont posting a sub-1.0 rating.
Man, whoo.
Sounds crazy, but because it's Donk, 4 even sounds like a lot.
Like I'm surprised that never happened before.
Yeah.
Well, we've been waiting to see if Donk was going to have two human days back to back.
A 1-3 start, so far on Dust2.
But I can remember many games where I kind of highlight Donk's slow start and say,
Say ooh not his day only by the end of that for him to have numbers so we'll still hold our breaths
Give him an extra chance coming into the next gun round and hope that maybe spirit have something a little more
Inspirited again kind of slow burn up that catwalk awkward
Exchange of Lutile on their behalf right just like kind of teneer sitting out in the open blind
It just really stalled out and in that stalling
Spirit have really not chipped away at the money here for mouse. Yeah, it was a company the idea
Yeah, I think it also makes sense and feeds into what we've seen so far.
Spirit gopher, what is a fake exec out to mid B.
It looks like they're setting up a mid B, getting pushed out of the doors.
Magics double flashes.
Then they get up on the cat and try to make it an A play.
It's a bit of a fake because they know that mouse are likely to overreact towards B.
But they already lost towards B in the pistol.
And they also just kind of bungle this attack overall.
It's really not that good looking.
I think they even teamflashed themselves when they're coming up cat.
There's two players that come across that stand no chance of fighting.
And so even if you have a good idea,
where the conditioning kind of adds up,
you still have to execute properly.
They couldn't do that.
On this round, with an arsenal of weapons, they'll find easy, long control.
Nobody home as they just jump their way out.
And even in Donk's absence yesterday, it was Shiro, who has proven to be, again, when they need him,
rock solid.
He also starts this map quietly, 0 and 4, but now has that off.
Let's see if he can find a way to leave his mark on this one while T'Nir is very passively positioned outside of the tunnels.
Doesn't feel like Spinks is ever gonna head that direction.
But it's now at a minute fifteen that T'Nir starts to get a little more active.
I love the late-lower tunnels. Pushmounds have not done this, really.
This is one of those other ways in which you can support PR without actually being in the
side as well.
So, you know, a bit of creativity to address that side of the map.
But they pretty much know it's A. They just don't know about this lurker.
Another smoke to meet Maus's approach.
I probably weren't expecting that.
Oh, that's...
That hero has got the headshot on Xalex.
That's a mistake.
But here's the push.
Doesn't opt to stick around in the tunnels. PR can't afford to die here. He pumped up and he gets it.
Make sure that Tenir can't get away with opening up the opposite side. Not that Bomb was ever going to have an easy way to get out of here.
This is committed now and Sontics is the first to die on the ramp. Donk gets that instant trade back and with Bomb, he can cause a problem here for Maus.
He at least puts himself in a position to do something wild, something Donk-like.
Shiro's in a very threatening spot as long as they don't have a reason to turn around he can just hold this
Let's see how Torsi waits. Oh don't just lost half his health to a nade that hurts
Is that a reason to turn back? Oh shiro missed shot. Wow almost given a chance at a second
I don't know if he's got to do it himself, but that almost kind of freeze him off the leash doesn't eat to play with a teammate
He can do it on his own. We know this
Doc, three kills in, AWPer on the approach, and with that time already, he does it. No bad days back to back.
That's absolutely filthy out of Doc, man. After getting that knee damage, it had to be headshots, and it was.
I think that's a better round than we saw from the entirety of Doc's play yesterday versus FaZe.
It's just so inspiring, isn't it?
Fantastic way to get his game on.
Fantastic way to, like you said, inspire the rest of the troops to near and sheer or
looking at their scores now like, well, okay, can I do that?
If given the right moment, we'll see if they can bring to the table.
Already want to miss new variations over on B.
Right, a little change up again.
PR in behind, Mars Alex is dead first, and Torsi doesn't get that op trade back out in middle.
Zonsik's trying to peel back down, Torsi and PR have recovered.
What was the 4v5?
Now man, advantage, Maus, and look at them go.
Zersion even considering?
No, he'll let it go.
Understandably.
They have numbers.
Scary to throw away that number.
He sits in the smoke decides to get back onto the long corner and he's not going to find
anybody in that direction.
It is all up catwalk here for Spirit.
I was looking to split the difference here.
We're just watching them think about what Spirit might try to do.
Be careful that he shoulder peeks.
That made excellent shiro down to half HP.
Oof, front runner almost dead.
Awkward with the smoke grenade, but it's fine.
He could still play around it.
And he's also got Torsi still to try and help him.
But as Torsi is concerned with Long for a moment,
he could miss a timing.
We get this player crawling into the site.
Zershin will deal with that one.
Bomb to go down for the cat play, which maybe puts shiro
into a spot similar to Donk's last round.
Teneir trying to get off of this bomb plant, looking to move forward.
Noz is a player ramp, but Torsi is good with the trade.
And so a 1v3 here for Shiro, hoping somebody oversteps from that spawn.
And there's nobody attacking him from the flank.
There's also no further utility after that fire lands in front of him.
And it's not wide enough to stop him from going forward to the user, but he misses.
And Torsi is just here to do it all on his zone if he has to.
Trains' absorption gets the last kill and secures Maus of 5-1 lead.
He's got the 9-1 start, Torsi. Super good out of him.
These mid-round situations into the exacts again, you got some ideas that
they're getting to the right place at the right time when the exact comes through.
It just does not look that interesting.
I won't lie, they just are kind of meandering into angles, taking their individual tools, but
they're not really safely securing a bomb count, with numbers always losing a guy to get their space and not off it, getting the trade either.
It took a big clutch for Spirits to get any of these rounds, otherwise it would just be
There's two ways you can respond if someone keeps trying to target you in a certain way,
like over on B as we've seen already from the game plan with Spirit.
One of those is lose confidence and not make any adaptations and just kind of, you know,
become inbiddered at your site made it and not really work together or, like we're seeing
in this game, as the story gets tagged down mid, try some new stuff, you know.
We haven't seen Spanx and PR really playing off each other at this event.
And now they're layered up, they've done some different pushes.
With the little time that Maus have had, it's understandable that maybe there's that awkwardness
out of the gate.
And it's just nice to see that Maus can clearly address it day to day, try to change it up.
And they will be hoping for their sake.
This new formula can stave off what's supposed to be spirit, quote-unquote, best Dust2 team in the world.
The mouths are very strong towards A. Xellix is also a super underrated presence.
He had some of his best rounds at the event on Dust2.
That early damage on Torgy could make things awkward for this AD defense.
But then again, just land the shot. Nah. Goes for the nade, the timing off Taneer ends up being perfect.
And we can see a quicker scramble from Taneer into this A site instead.
Magix gets traded, Zell X pressured from Taneer who gets a second off of his play from long swaps into that AWP with no hesitation.
And Donk, planting bomb, now has vision overtop into the CT spawn.
I like that when Spirit decided to go on that 10-year timing, everybody seemed pretty ready
to just pounce.
There's no reason to give Spinks a look at this, but now he actually has a chance.
Donk here to his left as Spinks is emerging, he's still considering Donk's last known
position, but Donk will keep it fresh and get Spirit back to winning ways.
What's crazy about yesterday is that Spirit won.
They really did do it without Donk.
They did it because of the consistent output from Shiro and Teneir, who played incredibly well.
But they also just as a team were moving a lot better. They were getting all the room between timings.
It was like, it wasn't an extremely fast-paced T side. I would say it was one step up from a passive T side.
Like they were catching mouths. They're catching mouths with nades out here. They're doing the same thing versus FaZe yesterday.
but it feels like when they fix one thing and other thing breaks that's sort of
what it's been for for spirit in the last few days
Yeah, that's what something was.
Yeah.
Hi, friend.
It's four rounds back and forth that chews through Mouses' money.
He's still able to come through with the big reinvests and you're already out long face-to-face with Zell X who's ready for more.
Aw, it's so clean. Triple kill out of Zell X as he presses into this push.
Insertion had a clear idea coming off of that short tech pause that he wanted this idea to stick guns of lazing towards long and they catch that to near exit.
It's actually... It's crazy how many times Alex has made a play like that happen.
He's so good, even on a low ammo count with that A1S, picking up three kills in that spot.
Two would have probably even been enough with Spinks right there to finish off the last player, but now there is no chance.
This is a different spot to play B from.
Yeah, right.
And PR is alone.
Kind of want to like to see how that goes, but he saw the leg on the approach, and just
a fresh angle for PR, trying to dodge AWP shots as Shiro's whittled down, and so rock
solid stuff from the young guns.
PR was asked by Banks before this game, you know, what's it like playing right next to
Zellex, and he said, I like it.
It's young energy.
Two to three pieces.
Two to three pieces, side by side, and you feel it, Zellex steps up to the plate, great
accuracy.
And just great use of the blue boxes cover
It's a tight angle that gives it mouse a sixth round win
And it feels like we're getting all of mouse you can look across the board and pinpoint their moments
Which does feel like it could be a winning formula more so than hoping that
Torji is gonna keep up these astronomical stats. You're already got more multi kills than he did yesterday
Only nine rounds deep. I like the secondary AWP swap out. Let's see what he can do with the sniper.
Versus pistols. Won't miss the first shot and he's just hoping that they get drawn into Spinks playing front car.
Nice second one as well for PR. Showing some depth. Sure versus just pistols, but not one whiff shot makes this round all the easier.
And Maus remain on the ball, pushing Zelecs out for long.
They could just be sat back and waiting, but not wanting to give real estate over, feeling
comfortable and confident.
It's nice to see Maus as mobile as they've been, right?
Stinks into the lower pushes.
Zelecs obviously made easy in this 5v2 to get aggressive, but you wanted multi-kills
from PR.
one, albeit just the anti-eco.
You know what they say, the mobile mouse gets the cheese.
What's up with this, eh?
It's clean shots.
It feels like after what we've seen this week, any round that that B site holds strong,
he's a good round for mouse.
Looks like they really have put in a lot of work over here, man.
We got PR, AWPing, playing the barrels, a few different looks with the tunnel pushes
that have all worked.
I mean, surely going into this series, they knew Dust2 was going to get targeted.
Man, they got an AWP supporting an AWP here.
This is wild.
Uh-oh.
And T's already up to smoke.
Yeah.
Not as comfortable as last round.
Torsi's trade is swift, but then you get that to near walk out. So that's a crazy setup. Yeah. Yeah, maybe cooking a
little too much
And PR is the one that offered that smoke grenade for them to just get up close to
I felt like the first rendition of the double-op setup is great, but then the follow-up is like...
Yeah, he smoked him out the tunnels. Yeah, he's offing. Yeah, he's only part-time.
It was never gonna be perfect. No, it wasn't gonna be perfect. You just wonder what the magic
number is to allow Spear back into this game. That's on this point. It's already been sort of a
failure of a T-Sign I feel like. I guess if they get five rounds it won't feel too
bad about it but the opportunities to let go like the kind of CS they showed so
far it's it's not what they had visioned last night before they went to sleep
thinking how we you know we know where he gets us to first in the picks. We know
what the weaknesses are but they couldn't exploit them right away.
But that is a clear mistake at a mouse chance now for spirit to get some dignity back.
At least mouse have evaded having to go back into pistols for the rest of this half.
got this next gun round and ample money to buy in the last.
Around like that, it's going to put the B site back under
question.
We will not see PR bring that second off back into the play.
the
early numbers towards tunnels here for spirit
it's gonna be shiro on the hunt
it's the flash and looks to go right back at it which is dangerous
Whoa, bullet whizzes by PR. He's gonna start dropping nades. Spinks gets tagged slightly through the mid smoke.
Oh, yeah, they're using the smoke that 3D Maxis versus them.
They'll fall back out after smoke comes up and now they're kind of in a scary spot.
And that nade had actually gotten into the tunnels instead of just the Xbox that could have been brutal.
The spear have gotten past that point where if there's any threat up Catwalk, they've
convinced Maus to fall back into this 3A lane, which would set up the mid-split quite nicely.
I think at the end, like, Spears don't want to have to risk it on the CatExact.
The CatExact so far has just been so poor.
Oh, yeah.
I think they'd much rather just hit this B site once again with the lack of a Maus member
down in CT spawn. I'm actually surprised Maus are not falling south. Now this will be the
ultimate test here between these two. They're kind of on their own. Of course off the reload,
they're gonna jump. Spinks turns back, they figured out the players still towards par.
Spinks though at least gets the kill on Teneir. Donkel clear out the bomb site and with that
Magic's having already walked out middle. Thank goodness for Mao's Torji trades
But I mean there's no surprise Spinks empties that whole magazine and on his reload
They use that chance to get into the B site with the lurk smoke that was already in position
Now muzzle are deprived of information right there
But the retake
Donk eats the flash as he looks to extend into this tunnel duel
That's going to confirm the approach.
We've got a battle between the offers and Torsi
just tip-toes into Shiro,
who is now happy to grab the line towards Zellex.
And sure enough, Spirit go back-to-back
success stories inside the B site
to try and make something of this T side.
So sure, Spirit have their flaws,
but Maus are imperfect as well.
And this is a spot where, again,
I think they've been pretty sharp about
really reading their opponents.
That's something that Maus just have done very well,
despite them figuring it out with this lineup.
But I feel like in the back of their mind, they knew Spirit are going to take any opportunity
they can to make this another B hit or mid B split, but no mid from Zershin early on,
no vision on mid at all, and maybe if they had traded Magic's kill, they could have
gone for a retake, but they didn't want to let it get to that in the first place.
Spirit have really opened the door now.
Everything they were looking for in the beginning of the game is starting to happen towards
the end of the half.
Last round did feature that attempt up Catwalk to try to snipe a player from tunnels, but
Maus didn't get the 5v4 that they were hunting for.
And with success towards this B site stacking up as the half has gone on,
we still don't get that lean.
We still don't get the mid-play.
Torsche remains passive on the cat approach, just in case magics oversteps, he's here
to throw the nades, there's nobody watching him.
This walkout is kind of crazy, like, he's just going to jump up in the window thinking
oh, he might start going for mid now.
Doc's already at the doorway, man.
It's going to be a free-track for him, right?
Oh, well, not free, but...
Just like that
Then the long activation gets caught as the patience pays off and it's another one where again from our perspective
Mid just remains a bit too lights and maybe that's an understatement
They actually have to be worried here Teneir's gonna have them crawling up
Xersion had a chance now all on torgy freed up to go for the clutch
Nice five seven shot to start the off shot for the tunnels kill now
Now it's all about figuring out where Shiro's gotten off to.
Dor was smoked in the pistol-in from Window.
No hesitation out of Shiro.
Great rebuttal backed by Spirit to secure three consecutive at the end of the half.
Thank you, BlackBounty, with Team Spirit, with Donk, with Magix.
In your opinion, how did last season go for you guys?
To expectation, beneath expectation, or are you happy with it?
It was pretty expected that the beginning will be shakier as fuck, but at some point we just locked in and played much better, so it's like a strong 5 out of 10.
It seems like you put a lot of pressure on yourself to fix things, because before you just got to be, you were at the beginning of the spear, you were just a young player, you always got to have Kevlar on the pistol rounds.
Now you're the guy that's dropping guns and things like that.
But so now it's just a changing of roles, obviously, in perspectives.
Yeah, I feel like this is kind of a life cycle for a construct player.
You begin with being a prospect, showing great stats, beating a lot of people.
You know, at some point you are going more to the actual roles.
The other day you're dropping your weapon.
the next day you're throwing utility the other day you're an IGL and if you're a bot
you die in a week if you are not a bot you're winning a couple of tournaments
as IGL and after this you will coaching and after this this is GM's broadcast
It's broadcast, it's broadcast, yeah that's the end, uh okay talk, how do you feel about your individual performance throughout the years thus far?
Just a little bit, because I had a good, the months where we didn't show up as a team, but like, I felt like I felt great,
I felt great. I can't say that I was as consistent as I was last year, but still, I think I'm still pretty solid.
You struggled against Falcons at the Major. What is it that Falcons, they seem to perform well against you?
No, I just choked the match and that's it.
I think it was too important for me to win this major.
Like, basically I won my second major and I have like more, maybe like 10 years of career
and this one major is not enough.
If Spirit do anything other than win the trophy, is it just a failure of a tournament?
Everything is a failure unless you win.
Because you've been a pro player.
Not at this level, not at that.
But it's just an agent.
Yeah, yeah.
An agent in the feeling.
You go to a tournament, you lose it at some group stage, playoff match, doesn't matter.
Next days you are heading to the airport and shuttle, and you are full of regrets.
It doesn't really always matter how you look, even if it was E-50-50, you had all the opportunities, you are still full of regrets.
This place is a failure, says Magix, in real content piece, and so, definitely fighting
for this one, and forced to fight versus what was a stable CT side to start.
But, Maus, as we expected, to have issues on Dust 2, allowed a few of those rounds to
creep onto Spirit's board, and now Dawn's tapping you out in the midfights.
Aggressive to start another pistol, Spirit trying to take the duels to Maus.
I got him out of there, and he's gonna make sure that he just stays alive for the time being
Let's open up a bit of space towards mid while the CTs get
readjusted
Man, this is a dangerous spot actually where Shiro is fully committed in the back of pit
After that mid play I feel like this would be one of the less likely positions you'd find him
but he is starting to get a bit more active.
I just don't want to take it.
After such an aggressive start,
it probably feels weird to have all this vacant space,
but sure enough, Spirit, just want their sights now.
And a smoke for CT cross means you've got three bodies coming magics his way
Big commitment from this moment at a slow play out of sphinx from tunnels
You'll duel with sockets pick that up and then neither of the B defenders are able to catch a kill
But they left a straggler
Torji stays out towards middle
Which is just gonna give donk at least one kill before the retakes truly on sphinx is flanking there's a timer on this
Redirection, but if they can push through the doorway before he arrives. That's massive doesn't look like that's the case
Spinks will remove Shiro from the equation all on dock now 90 health would need the ace and as he goes back towards the door
Just really want somebody to make a mistake
They won't they wait to trade out mouse will win both pistols here in the opening map of our grand finals
Comes down any kind of b-hold especially with how spread out they were once again the aggressive attack on the red one for one
It was sort of fine for Maus to pick either site in this boss, 4v2, there's no middle
of a map control left over for Spirit.
And their anchors fall apart.
I have been responsible here for Spirit.
2 SMGs down here. Oh, and Shiro gets away with it.
Xelix doesn't clear.
And that was Shiro after taking utility damage.
Now they're worried that that smoke spam will continue
on their fallback, so strand it down here
in tunnels for the time being.
If magic starts to push, this gets very scary for Maus.
But will he?
Oh, Zershin at least gets the one.
They never know about Donk and Soki will
inside that smoke.
But as he gets his hands on the gun, Torsi capitalizes on him, sticking around for that
extra second, and this is going to put Spirits A set up in transition towards a vacant B
bomb site.
Now here's where you'd like to see them sort of move as a flock.
It's only two CTs coming in the mid, there's a glill to pick up obviously inside the door.
They turn this into a push.
Those are moving at a very good speed right now.
They smoke the doors? No, not even. Okay, PR crosses before it goes, and look at that.
A bomb site. Free for the taking.
They don't have the best guns for this long-range duel, but PR has also only got a Galil. In
fact, there's only three Galils. Trade potential here for magic, but he's the first to fall
PR going to keep it clean. And that should secure a majority alive. Teneir just sticking
around in case he can punish. Can we call that another multi-angry T? Yeah, I think so.
He's been getting better from that spot for sure. No, let's uh, he put in the practice
clearly coming into this game, so yeah. We'll recognize the efforts from back-plat to near-
Oh, excuse me, PR finds his impact.
Scary stuff, obviously, for Maus.
But once we bore them, Donk decided he wanted back a wheel.
MP9 wasn't good enough and really didn't expect
another player to be coming over that Xbox angle.
I really think that one came down to,
it sort of just felt like they were,
you know, both sides had their own ideas,
But with the players in tunnels, if they had a cap push, they have so much pressure on mid.
They could have been able to punish both towards the end-zersion before either of them get a kill.
If Magix had made that push.
Not much to defend B with.
B250 goes down first.
It's pretty good utile damage, but Xellix is the solution.
Churns through the B defenders.
They'll drop utility to make sure there's no window push.
That is something nice about this new mouse, just feel like PR can take his turn going for entries.
Alex can get entries like that, and then Zerchen also, but not just Zerchen.
Magic's run for the hills, gets gunned down, there's a little bit of extra money made here for Torgy.
That'll fund his op addiction.
Double digits for mouse as this T-side remains clean.
They also do something weird where it feels like if PR has the long spawn,
They entry with him out long, but towards B it's like Binzelix.
Right.
He's not all, PR is not always out in front, but I'm not sure if that's just a matter of how the spawns
have played out, or if he just likes entering in that direction.
This is going to be PR's worst map of the pool, they've got great odds in this series.
Prime Torgy, he is on pace for his highest rated land on mouse, excluding play in stages.
There's talk of the town as to whether he could keep it up versus an opponent that always
seems to sit him on his ass.
I think Vue said it averages like a 0.63 versus Spirit.
Don't need to misquote.
I feel like those are the numbers.
Shockingly poor in contrast to what he's been putting forward.
Smoke meets the MAK10, Zershin happy to test this, yeah, Magic's got the advantage, and
on top of that, the support.
So not made comfortable for that one SMG to run forward, they're gonna throw another volley
of nades out and bring reinforcements through, but by the time they take this next peek,
There's nobody home any longer.
Spirit disassemble that cap light and just put a smoke in front of them instead.
Magic sticking around as this is starting to look like a commitment.
Maus are breaking through and Donk dies first.
Magic's trying to find impact here and it just hits a brick wall.
dropped in front of this.
Op still remains smoked off.
The Utilities made this round uncomfortable,
but what if Spirit stepped into these duels?
It's just the time that they have to make it an A-play right
now.
Yeah.
They can spawn back.
They let it go.
No bomb possession.
Maus just kind of, much like Spirit's approach up that catwalk,
kind of gets stuck turning their wheels in the mud.
Yeah, definitely.
Good clean, a couple of kills for Magix.
That'll be his fifth and sixth.
The distinct lack of fragging over on Spirit right now, that's not really an issue for
Maus.
For the mid-hold, can he?
No, nade covers.
That's 2B defenders to slot.
Quick tempo, those elix already down by mid-doors.
And we're not going to get a repeat of Spirit's forward cap play.
Not what the timing mouths have. If they were quick about it,
they could keep this one moving forward, and they're right on the brink.
Magic's met by Smoke starts to peel back, and it will be another attempt for Mouse to
move up Catwalk with numbers.
He's looking for a bit more of this, some of the nades from safety.
Feels like so many rounds come down to just a straight up duel, but where, what happened
a softening up your opponent before you fight him.
Similar scenes on this catwalk to the last round.
Magix doesn't play around at this time.
He's much more focused on mid.
Good read by Magix.
And as they walk down through it, there's the drop down from catwalk.
Sheerow traits that one back.
Then it spinks and PR the frags, but a clean flank at a tin ear.
Just taps with the galil.
The B site gets opened by the Tunnels lurk, but there's just this bloodbath of Maus
members in the middle. There's still a world where Spinks could rob this back, but 20 seconds
means the clock is really going to pressure him, and with only 8 HP left, it's desperate.
They have to mess this up. He's not getting this bomb back. 8 HP, $0 on Torsi. Very low
money here for Maus. They'll hang onto this. Got to say it's like one small move out of
but he just knew. Saw their set up smokes, wasn't the cap play this time, whatever the tell was,
he was locked in, dropped into CT spawn, instantly got that first kill, even before Xershin drops
down into CT and the whole point of that strat is to beat him there, so they can hold onto that
control while they mid-beast play. Oh, wow. No way. He did that off of Xershin's shooting.
No way!
And it wasn't even through the smoke.
Nothing but audio there for Spirit, for Hero.
That's nasty context.
When you think what Xershin could have gotten away with if he was allowed to stay in CT spawn.
Because they also got that B site entry.
That Tenir was gonna clip him all.
4-0 in series against Maus.
He has never lost to Maus.
Trying to keep that up.
One rifle in the mix here from Spinks' save.
Extra set of Kevlar in case Zellex somehow finds his hands on that gun.
They will move as five.
That smoke grenade gets passed back and Zershin just steps into the death.
They're going to try to jump this. They know they've got some kind of an opening. Problem
is the support not too far off. Donkin Magix for cleanup duty. Make this a two round gap.
10 to 8. The question becomes can Maus actually bring this home or not? They're going to have
right around 4k on everyone to invest. Alex has only got 3300. That means no off right
right now for Maus. That powers down towards you a little bit. It also means they're going
to be spending all their money to get this buy in. Equalizing opportunity here for Spirit.
Shiro hanging on, but not long enough.
That forward cat play.
It's been costly for mouse to approach catwalk.
They're like a touch low on utility, but they actually have a fair few smokes.
They can work this map a little bit.
That's all they get out of Spirit is one smoke in front of the play.
Nate follows suit, nobody home.
Very clearly heading into this mid-split once again. It's Donk.
They try to be the resistance. Nobody inside B site, and I see Spinks getting closer to that tunnel smoke.
As now the CT smoke comes up. It's gonna be mouth to try to trade. Why? God needs the flashbang.
PR comes out on top with his and now Zaltix's position has been figured out.
He's still able to catch that bomb carrier. Zershin preoccupied with CT. Tells Spinks to go grab bomb and do it fast.
Catching magics on the approach. Tenir tries to go through the smoke spam to get a trade.
He can't see but it's not the case and now Zershin runs this back around through tunnels.
Tenir instantly to close this distance on the bomb planter. He just wants the dual burn on Spinks.
But Spink stands tall, finds impact as he walks through a vacant site, and with this triple kill, goes up to 22 and 6.
Man, Doc thought he was onto something. Went for that really wide swing in the mid, but with a flash.
And that's as they were fighting in the CT spawn, so I don't know where this flash actually came from.
Just want to hope that wasn't a flash from CT.
They're just in flashes.
They make them pay and that's two players pulled out of the site to fight a mid-b attack with magics in CT spawn
They were thinking about this hit coming in
The one thing they let go was tunnels control and spanks nearly got the frag before
There was any more trades. It would have been even worse
And even though Maus's money was on the brink, it's even worse now for Spirit.
MP7, MP9, two Fommesses, and an M4.
Spinks is absolutely correct, money's not the best.
Just mentioned the limitations.
It's all Spirit can afford.
Feels like a very easy round to win after this one,
if Maus can win here in round 20.
This game feels a little bit competitive.
I've won after this round depending on how it goes,
But right now it's a low buy for Spirit, not a single player with a positive KD.
And this won't be the way they want to hold up against long.
If a long hit comes in this way, they're not ready on Cat either.
They're going to be dropping into CT, defending in the worst way possible towards the A site.
All that perfect call here for Maus.
All that conditioning towards middle and the B bomb site.
We have not seen action towards long and they will find it totally free.
A smoke grenade in front of them is all that's going to slow it down,
but they're already through it at the smoke's halfway point.
Spinks, can he hang on?
As they inch closer to him, it's an instant kill onto Nier.
And now already Maus are ready to take this site by storm.
Magics having to dive back down, but they do deal with the cat play at least.
That's something to work with here for Spirit.
But Bomb is planted, which means the pressure of the retake is on.
Nade comes up catwalk, we've got a dual-cued towards long, Zershin you'd think would have the edge.
Porgy's allowed for them to get out, the arc is covered.
Now two rifles trying to deal with that second cat play,
draws the long guy out, falls down into the 1v2.
Oh, what? Jumping, Fommus headshot!
Magix now, health advantage, deep overtop of Zershin, does not have a kit.
Oh, but that bomb's not planted for Zershin, he's got to close this distance.
10 second defuse, halfway there, forces Magix off, but he doesn't have it.
Maus will secure a 12th, and it is money in the dumps out of spirits.
This is the only kit.
Donk had it, and he was over there on Cat.
They needed that.
There's a heart-sinking moment there for Zershin, knowing that it's planted behind single and
he was over at long.
They took a crazy jumping Fommas kill to even make this possible.
With five bullets left.
I think the problem starts though when they try to approach Spinks on Cat, but they don't
fully clear it.
Then they send one guy out with an MP9.
He gets a free frag.
Sphinx has no support right there.
Oof, and a 5v4 to boo.
Your hero is down early.
Donk, 14 and 16.
Tineer tries to recover, extending alone off of the cap play.
He will get back at least the 4v4.
But real limitations for everybody else other than Tineer's M4.
Torsi will continue to put distance between him and Donk as the top-rated player at bounty.
And surprisingly, in a map that we thought Spirit would most certainly have the edge,
Maus not only show improvements on that B site for the defense.
Trying to keep this clean though, Spinks just takes a bullet to the side of the head to
that one M-Force found its value on the round.
It's going to queue up the pistols and MP9s to move over.
Hanging on to Long here by Teneir has really just freed up the pace of this one.
As PR tries to extend into that duel, he taps away the edge of the smoke to reveal it.
Finds a magics instead, knows the next player's low, they drop it in the back.
Mous will not waste anybody's time closing out on Dust2
And suddenly making this series interesting as Maus win their first map over Spirit in 2026.
The last time Zershin led this squad up against these opponents, they never even got close to double digits.
That could very easily be the scariest test for them in this map pool.
They had to wake up today knowing that Dust2 was up front and Spirit were excited to play it.
But they conquered the game plan. Their individuals look fantastic and for Spirit,
Unfortunately, they look more like they did yesterday.
I've got a very happy cyclone with me after an important Dust 2 victory.
You guys have been struggling on this Dust 2 a little bit,
especially on the CT side, right?
B could have been a weakness,
but it seemed like Spirit didn't hit it until more towards the end of it.
What do you feel about just the team's performance and why you battled back in this?
You're right. Dust2, not always an easy map for us.
We also have to play the world's best teams on the map. Falcon, Spirit, Vitality as well, right?
So it also happens to be one of the maps we put the most work in.
Because we play it so often, so I think also if you really dig into it, you understand that
our philosophy on the map is at a quite high level, it's maybe more of a confidence issue.
I think it was also on Dust2 B-side, and we're battling a little bit some demons there for sure.
there for sure but we're working on it you're working on it and it paid off
already you just said about confidence issue as well what's the confidence
looking like what were you hearing on the comms it must be feeling pretty good
right now for the starting map it was good first map I think it was
fortunate that we had such a good strong start on city side and they came back
into it and I think with a different start maybe it's a different outcome you
could definitely feel that got more hectic towards the yeah it starts to get
closer but also when they fight back a bit and it's not an easy team to play
against but yeah of course we're happy right now it's next map we've got to put
focus on that got to put focus on starting on the T-Sat now.
Sarkron thank you very much your time go get back with your boys we're gonna go to the desk.
Yeah Sarkron maybe sugarcoating it a little bit there they have some demons on their B-Sat but
it was a lot better this time around it was a mouth that we were not expecting to see
on Dust2 specifically we know that they have it in them but coming up against Spirit getting a win
on their map choice and a map that they've shown so many strong B-side rounds on as well,
Voo. This is a massive confidence boost for Maus and a Grand Final.
I think Banks kind of got it with the question there. You know, Spirit didn't hit the B-site
until so late into the game. I think they were expecting more of an adjustment for Maus to put
a lot more focus on the B-side. Maus just played their game, Cyclone, saying it's maybe a confidence
issue. Regardless, it was until 7-2 down that you actually saw Spirit hit the B-site and find
consistent success on that side of the map. You have to question how it would have gone
if they did that a little earlier. Without a doubt, I feel like this is a spirit team
that unfortunately did a little bit too much of the old cliche of playing their own game
because if they had just scouted now, a bit more coming into it, that was all we really
talked about in the pregame. That Spinks and PR had been a shaky duo, obviously by the
end of it. Their score lines look incredible. If they had demons on B, those guys are just
been angels for them in this game. I think that PR and Spinks though got kind of were
We're fortunate that they weren't just purely tested in so many of those B defenses as we've
seen the entire tournament.
Everybody is just hammering them.
I'd like to see the ego adjusted stats there.
They had a couple, I think two or three egos where Spirit went to be even when they were
losing but still a very impressive performance from Spinks especially in the middle and on
the second half I think he was their most impressive player on the CT side towards
he did his thing.
But I think Spinks actually comes out of that one looking very good.
Well we can't necessarily alter the stats but I can ask Maui, did PR pass the eye test
this time around because coming into this grand final, he was your big question mark,
especially on this map as well. Yeah, he had been kind of just doing his job, but that was it.
We weren't really seeing this PR from online, this PR that has potential, but in a grand final now,
has he hit that surpassed it? And you're actually really happy with what could happen for the next
few maps? I am extremely happy that he wasn't tested, as as Vu's alluded to, that it took until
what, round 10 or so, when Spirit finally on a gun round decided to go at them. That's when he
actually did unfortunately falter it got a little bit messy between the two of
them on those kinds of rounds but for the most part I mean the T side was
excellent from him the way he closed out the game was great and again just you
put him on a bomb site especially in a post plant situation he knows where those
oncoming CTs are retaking from he's gonna look extremely sharp also just did a
little bit of secondary op-ing there I think so I think he had a lot of great
moments here that definitely alleviated some of that that B defense pressure I
think the weakness for PR comes when he has to stay stable on a bomb site and
and just take smart decisions when he's in an after plant, as you're saying,
when he's in a rotation situation, he can dictate the engagements at his own pace.
That's where he does really well.
So it wasn't until later where maybe we could have been seeing Spirit testing Maus a bit more
in that first half there, but there was a round, Maui, round number six.
That was one of them where you're looking towards Maus,
and you're still actually pretty impressed with what they're able to do.
Yeah, Maus in this round actually, they lost the opening pick,
but they were able to push back. And before the game started, I also said,
I wanted PR to test Zontics. I wanted Spinks to sometimes get into his face because they
they so often leave Zontics there by himself, but I also thought that the utility reaction
from exertion and the rest of the mouse crew was just phenomenal here. I mean you you have this
perfect defensive smoke that buys all the time in the world. By the time the Spirit players are
moving over towards the site, first of all the numbers are getting whittled, but also Spinks
is in for a quick rotation. There's so much pressure on Spirit at this point in a two on four
to just try to make a play, try to swing off of the bomb site, but Maus were so aware of all the
options that Spirit had, and they also had just such a great reaction there to get the return picks
after they even lost the opener. There's certainly a reason when we talk about Maus, we talk about
the B site. It's because the A site is is impregnable at times, you know, you've got Zershin there,
often in the perfect position, and the coordination between him and Torgie,
and Zellix on long as well, is always top tier. I mean, Torgie himself has been outstanding,
We've been so impressed with what he's been showing up in Blast bounty his conversation around, you know
If they win this is he gonna be MVP?
Obviously, he's right now at the forefront of this race there
And I don't think it's slowing down with what he showed on dust 2 either. It was just great
The hopping was just so so sublime for Torsey in this one
I feel like he's just been extremely mobile taking I'd say the one thing that I've noticing about Torsey versus
What I saw from it in previous seasons is that he was just more of a stable piece
He's one of the foundational pillars of the team,
but now he's emphasizing himself a bit more.
He's puffing out his chest.
He's taking fights to people, even on Spirit,
who he's historically been awful against,
but now he's just that extra little bit of flair
that we're getting from Torsi,
just taking a couple more duels per game.
The re-peaks, I feel like when he first joined Maus,
re-peaks got beaten out of him.
They were cool in the beginning,
but so many teams punished him,
but now he just chooses his spots so well.
Looking back in the last season, Dust, who's a map,
where Torgie would be more mobile than you would see
from some other oppers, from Shiro especially,
but it's a level up even from that,
where he's moving around the map.
You saw highlights from site on A,
you saw highlights in mid fighting B,
fighting mid, fighting long.
He's all over the map on Dust 2 to a degree
that we wouldn't have seen in the past.
I think his confidence in this one
is only gonna continue to go up.
Well, let's keep the praise going
for all the mouse players, right?
because, again, you win dust to Spirits.
Map pick is a map that's been so strong for them.
Spinks was the other one.
We touched on just how great he was looking before
when we saw that scoreboard come up
and how great his numbers are looking.
But what more is that Spinks is doing
that other people might not be seeing
if you're just looking at those base stats.
He's playing for the team and he's being rewarded for it.
That was definitely a problem for him at times
when he was on mouse earlier,
where he would sometimes get great stats,
but it didn't always contribute to win conditions.
But on this T side, I really think Spinks was phenomenal in the macro.
He had so many easy fights for himself because he knew when to pressure tunnels,
when Zontics finally had to take care of mid.
He was so good at coming up the catwalk.
Even if he was going one for one on some of these,
he was still exerting so much pressure and getting that first kill,
wherever his position was,
that it was just making the pincer attacks from mouse so effective.
That's what you really want to see from your lurk.
Sometimes you see a player, they might lose a little faith in their team
and they turn into more of a Beatty type player.
They're waiting for the perfect duel
so they can get a kill for themselves
because, I mean, dying on the outskirts of the map
isn't any better than staying alive.
But when you see him with a little more confidence,
with players around him, Torsche playing as he is,
PR having a great game, then he feels enabled
to go aggressive and actually exert pressure,
and it makes the life for his team much easier as well.
Could you potentially see Spinks out doing himself
on Mirage having a 1.91 rating?
That does it get better?
Does it get higher than that, Vu?
He's not docked.
It's tough to outdo yourself if you're not
docked with a 1.91.
Well, you might put him on the lower side there,
but if you guys love a good game of higher and lower,
you can head on over to Blast TV,
because I see Mark, it has a fun mini game over there
where you are going to try and see.
If you know that the skin on the right
is higher or lower, then the market value
of the skin on the left.
Give me higher.
Give me higher.
Higher than 4.9.
Yes.
Give me higher.
OK.
And yeah, I was like, you know, you just heard.
Give me higher.
What love case give me higher. Okay. Yeah, okay. I'll trust you late
Thinking higher wait wait. Oh, no, wait. It's well worn lower. I think lower will warn
Whoo, okay. We're so good at this higher. It's higher. It's higher. Gotta be higher specter. Oh, it's close though, right? Oh
No, I said lower. You didn't
You're gaslighting right now.
No known gaslighter, Voo here.
Anyway, what was your take again and your prediction?
Don't best...
I don't know about that. I think that one's gone. I think that one's all gone.
A lot of fun with the higher load. Do you guys want to go again very quickly?
Oh really? Okay, why not? Run it back.
Okay, I'll let Voo take the whole range this time.
You can stop.
It looks pretty good, so it's higher. It's anime, isn't it? It looks higher.
It is, by LodgeRogin.
Train souvenir below her.
This could be the easiest game of high-law.
Hire.
You didn't even see it because you...
He pre-fired.
He literally pre-fired at an angle like you know.
As we learned watching Dawnk today, sometimes pre-firing doesn't work out.
Doesn't always work out.
Works for Torzie, though.
Works for Torzie. Works for Spinks.
Yeah, I was gonna say, it works great for Torzie.
I mean, Mal's already won a map up in this Best of Five Grand Final.
We're going to see how our second map of Mirage plays out off this break.
Zersen, in Astana when you took over the IGL Vol, you told me you wanted to be a different style of IGL
and be able to put up the numbers. Obviously, it has slowed down a little bit here.
What do you put that down to?
Well, I'm not sure yet, to be honest. I think yesterday was the first game I kind of won
as an IGL pure. I would call it like an old-school type where I'm very focused on leading and
calling and kind of sacrificing many times also for the good of the team and definitely
it was needed for us because we were maybe a little bit hesitant yesterday and I wanted
to show the guys a way that we can play for each other. But yeah, overall I wouldn't put
much thought into it. I just maybe had two of not the best games but still as an IGL I think I'm
still putting a very high output level for my role and yeah I think today definitely we will
need to see I want to have a better version of myself for us to have a good chance against Pirates.
Very nice and when you say you want to have a better version of yourself it's one thing I
noticed I think it was after ancient. Sychrome was talking to you for a long time while the
rest of the team went off and it continued into the corridor as well. What kind of conversations
are you having at that point because I know obviously you're still going new for it but
but maybe you guys are trying to adjust as much as possible.
Well, usually we talk between maps about how to approach now,
the talk we will have before the game, before the new map.
Sometimes it's also individual things that he sees in me
that maybe I'm a bit too stressed or that I'm not so relaxed
and maybe my calling is not great,
but usually it's more about how we will approach the second map as a team,
what should we talk about outside now, or the third map, for example.
Yeah, I mean usually we just try to align before we go out and talk to the guys.
After a surprise, it does to win for Maus.
That's Spirits' map pick.
We look towards Mirage and we're hoping for a stronger Maus if that's even possible to
show up to get that one already under the belt.
And now you get to go on to something that should be your bread and butter, something
that you're way more comfortable in and maybe doesn't really require as much thought or
effort and just kind of becomes second nature for the now Maui.
are just excellent at Mirage. Throughout this tournament, for any team that's actually played
more than one series, they have the best trade percentage, and that's really no exception
on Mirage too. Just look at how in this T-Site round, every single kill is so set up, whether
that's utility or people playing off of each other. The initial shot from PR obviously
doesn't go their way of them, but they always trade. They always have such great spacing.
Every time they're taking a fight, it's a double swing, whether that's a guy high, low. And
I think that the thing with Maus, when they're breaking down these situations, is it's easy
to get flustered in a lot of these moments, but even if, for example, Spinks doesn't get that kill,
the other guy peaking from Get Right is going to get the kill. So, yes, the first kill doesn't go
their way, but they're able to still make it up, and that's something that Xontix and Magix are
going to have to deal with. A team that is extremely just gelling on the bomb site, so comfortable
playing around each other. Looking at this round and looking at the way that Maus played against
Astralis, I question how Spirit or how Maus are going to attack this one, because when you play
against a spirit team. You know,
Donk is going to be swinging out connector to clear under.
You know, Zontics is going to be swinging
off a short to fight in mid. Whereas what you saw
from Astralis, they were overloading mid
and Maus could attack the Astralis. Usually one,
maybe two players there, rarely
completely set up for it. But
you have a spirit that plays a completely different
style in the middle of the map. I'm wondering
if Spirit is going to have to change up, or Maus
rather, going to have to change up their strategy
and heading into a team where they know the
mid play is very much different than we saw
against Astralis.
Does that sort of squander any questions or concerns you have about what, you know, Maui
was just bringing up that there are still two strong sites now on this map for Maui's
because it felt like dust.
We knew that there was a weakness that wasn't exploited by spirit and now there isn't as
wide of an open door for spirit to be able to put their foot through.
If I saw one open door against Astralis, it was their post plants on the T side on the
A site.
It was the B site.
We saw some great post plants, but we saw Astralis really retake A2 or A3.
three times in the comeback that they mounted. It's not until the second half, I think we're
going to be seeing that, but this is still actually might be the first half, but this is
still a question mark I do have. Their site hits are great. Their macro is great. The question is
the after plant on the A side they really struggled with. That's definitely going to be a concern.
I feel like the thing is that I don't know if Spirit are always going to find themselves in
clean post plants. Taneer has gotten way more active on the A bomb side. When he started popping off
at Rio when he got to the grand finals and at Astana, he really shot up in terms of his
individual rating and a lot of that was because he started challenging ramp, challenging palace,
playing on default or under balcony. So if they're able to just get that clean first kill though,
post plants will go a lot easier for mouse. Feels like this could be a closer affair that maybe
we're going to get a little bit more in it than we did for Dust2. Either way, Mirage is sure going
to be a great way to continue out grand finals. Greatness continued maybe for mouse if they can
hang on to what is now their first map pick of this series. Not quite there yet, but our
our polymarket prediction now has spirit a little closer to
Mausmoe and a first map, especially dust to us to that
will change things in this best of five for sure.
That was an excellent test. I think now let's pass with flying
colors. I mean, even on if you just contextualize some of the
rounds, the way they played them, like from how they introduced
new setups to the fact that PR was getting all those
multi frags, like it was just an overall outstanding just to
And, you know, I hate to take away from Maus,
but this is just not the best spirit that we see.
I mean, the proof is in the pudding.
Everyone who's watched it can see.
If you look back on the box scores,
you see the dunk numbers don't make any sense.
It is definitely not spirit in very good form.
And we thought, okay, we'll play their online stage,
we'll play a few games online.
At some point, you get warmed up.
At some point, it all comes together.
But, worryingly, for spirit, it just really has not.
Shiro could have maybe saved them back versus FaZe yesterday, but we didn't get any kind
of ridiculousness in this first map of Dust2.
We also didn't get a Spirit Pistol victory.
We also didn't get a Spirit Force Buy victory.
So you know, Mao is just kind of collecting all the best ingredients for an easy win.
Yeah, and I think by the end of that, again, no players on Spirit even had a positive KD.
No one.
time that happened. Just now. Yeah. That's about it. Head
scratcher of a team spirit. Now it's probably just feeling
better and better as today goes on because it can I felt like
just winning that pistol round, you know, the CT side holding
off on the B bomb site, you just saw a good amount of elation
out of mouse to kick it off with that pistol. They were able to
hang onto that mentality and that excitement the entire map
long. There's been no reason to truly over-criticize Maus. Sure, maybe that B-site fell a couple
of times when it wouldn't have wanted to, but you still only gave Spirit five rounds
on the attack.
Yeah, they made a couple mistakes. They're normal, they're human.
And they bounce back from them really nicely. So I think Maus right now feeling in a good
place coming into their first map kick of the series.
It's going to be the A-side under question this time. Shiro's Corettas will only find
the one. Quick trades in, Donk will clip Torzzy, jumping over. Bomb planter, damn near killed
but Zellaxe hangs on with 35 HP crossing over to the ticket booth and that opens the door
for Spinks's lurk to find its victim. Donk didn't anticipate it, but it will be Magix
to just instantly start pushing up into ticket and into the retake. Bomb's on the other side.
And seconds, he's really going to stick that. Damn, and then they put the smoke on him.
They are trying to spam them out.
Body blocking down to half a second.
No way, guys.
Oh my god.
10 seconds.
5 HP in public.
He gets three seconds into the defuse
before they throw that smoke on him.
And that's just enough.
They must have had the plan with no kits.
They said, like, we have to go for this.
It's also planted on the inside of triple.
They just saw Sphinx jump away over to jungle.
They thought we just have to cover the last guy.
I think that you know that kind of adds up right like in the one sense. There is only one other target
That's an immediate problem
Whoops
I just gave that whole speech about mouse doing good
Well awkward hiccup at the end of the pistol
Maybe it was a weird move by
For Spinks, he chose to expand to jungle in that post plant.
But with as good of a position they had last round, they decided to come in and Spinks's AK has already gotten to.
Fast move up through connector.
All you've got to do now is deal with Tenir over towards ramp and that could be Zershin's job in a moment
He'll figure out the position, go back into the coverage and let the guns deal with it
Now smoke spam out of Zontik's off the mark
If Zontik's literally letting all of them connect there to his one teammate with an MP9 in the site, let them scale on him
And doesn't even save the M4. Okay, Spinks a triple kill in the force by
My mouse may have not won all three pistols, but this force by that's gonna do the job a full commitment from the rifle
Just to get a pistol down while spinks into the back shooters with a better gun
And I keep that incredible clean before players up
Torsche gets an M4 A4 off the bodies.
Spirit will try to rebound with a force buy of their own, but theirs only features one
scout and pistols.
And it is an appropriately stacked sight.
And it's looking like Maus want nothing more than to just force their way into A. The execute
for a shiro back slightly, jumping SMG move here from Zershin.
That's going to cost them one.
Spammer from down beneath, Taneer picks up the Desert Eagle,
headshot in the middle of all that.
Now everybody else barring the scout has been cleared out.
It's a dangerous game for Maus to play this round,
but at least they're all on the same page
and are all here as well.
Zellex just cracks it open with the Glock to finish.
It's still a majority of live situation out of Maus.
Yeah, very strong at Teeko.
good cleanup crew after they lost that first kill to it's near that's where
things get sketchy actually versus an A stack definitely a viable way to win on
an eco
the wind very much out of their sails to Deagle sprinkled in that's it that's
all
They're a good sign for mouths they're showing us.
They're best CS on the grand final Sunday.
Just been evolving as this event has gone on.
One of the rosters that starts the second half of 26 with a valid excuse if there were
growing pains.
Finding form every step of the way.
And on top of it, in this best of five thus far, I mean, Sphinx with a phenomenal dust
two, off to a great start here on Mirage again, and we've had this conversation about ever
since Zershin has taken over the reins of leadership that originally it cost Torgy,
and originally it cost Sphinx, and we're getting further and further from that point, and they
are finding consistency of Sphinx is going to level up for a best of five finals.
Yeah, maybe it's just healthier for Gameplan to not be totally centered around Zershin,
Especially now with like, you know, they want to show him a nice time, like you have PR coming into this team.
You don't want to just throw him into all the bump spots and like, not have him do much.
He can actually deliver a ton.
As Alex as well, like he's really done nothing but impress.
I think he's made a few mistakes here and there.
Sometimes he gives away an advantage.
Not going for an extra kill when they have numbers, stuff like that, but his multi-kill potential is really high.
It sort of feels like he'd gone just from a small version of like Big Uzerah for a
couple of years there where he was taking all the, all the duels and really winning all
of them and carrying, but you know, Big Uzerah and Zershin, we're time to say this, but they're
not Donk.
And so if you're going to center an entire game plan around a player like that and have
them call as well, the big question is will it last?
First blip. Spirit were 11 for 11 in converting pistol rounds of bounty until this map.
Oh wow. Not one. Not one of the teams to be a part of the problem until...
But it's a good opening move out of Spirit. Rifles in mid will not let Torgie get out of here.
Palace and ramps foot coming out, but Tenir holds the correct side at the right time.
And so it'll all fall on Spanx. This is Spirit just signing up with confidence to a mid fight that most certainly comes their way.
and mouths get blasted out of the round by Donk, Tenir, and Zontics.
I do sometimes miss the olden days, aka 2024, when Donk would run to the top midboxes every round on CT side.
A little Tasmanian devil.
But now they're using, you know, supportive utility, playing as a team.
He's going to get nice...
Oh!
That was spooky, man!
That was a jump scare, my goodness.
Did you have an op?
Um...
Surely not.
No.
Okay.
I can't think of a harder guy to try to flank with a knife than Spanx.
Like he's...
He's got the craziest clock.
scared me because I glimpsed at the radar yeah I can't imagine being being
spanks in that situation you know usually every knife attempt we always
see from the POV of the guy with the knife out it's much more scary the other
way around very scary yeah Jesus don't do that to me chef so it's a slow burning
candle but the safe does materialize for spanks he will remain nine and zero
Where did he come from?
Where was he exactly?
I didn't even know.
I was flapping my gums, talking about Donk.
Look at Donk, just not stunning.
Yeah.
He flies the top middle.
That's so wild.
That is so spanked, honestly.
What a sixth sense, man.
Oh
Sit down. Oh brother you thought you had a chance
He was already up there
You want a little information and instead your neurons are splattered on the back of mid
What a shot at a donk
Still going to walk forward with some of this mid-play, CTs themselves smoke off the base
of connector.
So this is going to cover Zelex's approach, Donk though, instinct with the headshot, Shiro
is finding the spam through connector, and so this one again in middle is a calamity
for Maus.
They don't find any footing in these last couple of rounds.
That's a bit more serious, that a spirit?
Yes sir.
You're getting Donk with early impact ever since he's had his hands on guns.
And in a moment, we're going to get to watch that replay of Donk DELEETING towards you.
Hot damn.
And if mid isn't going to be a part of mouse's T side, if they continue to lose it up against
the guns from spirit, this map's not going to be easy.
The save will keep mouse in a comfortable place.
Still have 6.3 thousand, now 8 thousand for skinks as the clock expires.
More guns to come, but how do you solve a hot-handed dog doing things like this?
Oh, nice, just as GOV's here.
Block!
Didn't even make the jump properly up into the top first.
Block, crazy reaction.
Nothing you can do about that, and obviously that interrupts the whole game plan.
You're off getting killed. Oh, yeah for the round he did starts need a thicker helmet to play up against Donk right now
All you did was jump that just looks so crazy. Oh man
Eight eighty eight percent
80% of his CT-sided openers on Mirage.
Wow.
88%!
Whoa!
I feel like you're lucky if you ever have that staff for one map.
As a player.
I had just done a second round conversion, just a total aberration apparently.
And now it's CHOSED to go up against those numbers here by picking Mirage.
There will still be questions remaining around Spirit's slower T-Sides on this map, and Spinks
capable of headshots himself, gives Spirit something to think about, something that could
damn well pull Donk away from middle, which could be the solution when these last two
Two rounds of Donk south for them.
Zontics walking up, the Catwalk gets killed.
And Donk just saw a player who doesn't pull the trigger.
That's going to let a second member of Maus move up Catwalk all on magics in a moment.
Trying to spam him out from this corner.
Oh, he can't hold back PR.
Tough ask of PR.
Donk already ahead of the utility.
Two players still to try to get beyond this.
Donk's looking to dive in on it, but Zellex gets him.
And so across the board, a kill apiece for all the members of Maus barring Torji.
Yeah, it's kind of a team failure right here every 50-50 you picked up
Out of mouse cleaned up. That's five alive on the win with the ball plant there
That's a healthy response out of a mouse that still have many rounds of a T side to play
And it all hinges on spinks just walking out ramp for a clean easy entry
Already had a fantastic costume by the way into the same start the barrage
It's off of Cyclone Timeout, FYI.
It's a subtle adjustment to go for the ramp duel first.
Big responsibility for Spinks as well, to kind of be the opening move of a round.
Yeah, completely.
Put so much pressure onto Nier.
If they ever leave him solo in the site, he's got so much that he has to watch for now.
That'll be a rare play.
We're not going to see Spinks try that every round.
Look at this.
Fast four players into the apartments out of Maus.
That's all the money Spirit have on this one round.
seeing a bunch of presence inside of the apps does draw the catwalk player back.
Rottage is going to be a little slow, has to be the hold.
Xontix hanging onto the arch side gets the first one easy.
PR denied with anything.
Now, with the damage dealt by Magix, Xontix meant to have an easier time, but Torsi collects it.
And Teneir's trying to slip the net to get back into the bench control.
This is being watched by the bomb, Zelex, great presence of mind with only a quarter help left to work with.
Donkenshiro versus three and Donk finds an early path around that smoke and Zellix has not moved a muscle
He's got the bomb
But it probably to their benefit to wait these smokes out. Yeah, they're just gonna have to stay here forever an open line once it fades
Donk remains on the dumpster double up by the bench here for mouse who have gone totally silent actually a good setup
I mean with the op here normally donk would have to worry about his gun sticking out, but he doesn't flash from
Zalex to try to cross, don't, kills him, now that's both players known, Torji, great cover, but that bomb still just spewed out into the open, they've got still another flash to get him off this line, and they've got to grab that bomb right here right now, both on this angle, and he just clipped Surtian, bomb hits the ground once again.
Shiro down to 20 health, Torji on a full bar, sits and waits, but misses his shot at killing Shiro.
Fake plant one time, another miss chance on Torji, but he will swing out and just finish it with the Glock.
A few missed opportunities from both oppers, winds up being Maus's fifth round win.
Torji gets a third attempt, peeking off of that pillar, and Shiro nearly outplayed him.
I'm trying to say, this is the big move on his LX, he has the bomb on his back, did not over-reduce the situation thing.
Oh, I see the plant right now, my teammates have everything. That's based the work with...
It's a crazy replay, guys. We're going 0 for 3 on the off-shots.
All for the glock kill.
Crazy important clutch though for a spearman, they're broke.
Kick him while he's down, why don't ya?
Well, not too down, they went around.
My day overall.
Yep.
Him and Spinks.
Wow.
Such a critical clutch, but man, your hands are clammy when you've missed that third shot.
You can feel it slipping past you.
Odds are, you know it's on the other end in this pistol setup and Spirit are gonna go
heavy towards the B site, good bit of conditioning perhaps, just trying to go for a gamble where
Maus have no interest because these last few rounds have been pretty vacant on that ramp
except for the single Spinks walkout.
And when Spinks makes moves, he tends to do so alone.
Teneir 3 and 7 with a USP and his smoke on ramp about to fade.
So he'll just throw himself as well to that B site, cross your fingers and hope the dealer
doesn't hit 21. This is now is up 6-3 on the T side now. Mapping their back pocket, showing
adjustments, showing different looks with that timeout. And the Spinks were, who is now yet
again in the kill feed. It's a house's favorite, 12-2. Is there a world somehow, some way?
Yeah, I know. Spinks can become the MVP. I mean, in a grand finals performance, it's not that strong.
It's versus spirit as well.
As far as the land portion, the land portion alone,
Spinks comes in with a 1.12 rating.
Why don't HLTV divide these? What's going on, Prof? What's up? Oh, yeah, they separate the online from the land.
Yeah, that's fair. Make me look up two numbers.
You know what? Why don't we just do like...
Yeah, that's a joke.
Binks 1.14 and 1.12.
I can do the math. He's averaging a 1.13.
Okay, I tore you?
God damn it.
That's what you gotta figure out.
1.48, 0.3.
I'm going to carry the two and then subdivide exponentials in 1.37 okay
it'll be tough but you know what this rate also it'll be tough because Royce is
also playing well yeah sure so sure
And then there's also that whole possibility that Spirit get back and control this game.
There's like four classes now and good rounds are in there, but oh man, I know there's no trade there from Dog.
You really can't point to a weak link on Maus so far in this best of five, no.
Which bodes very well for their likelihood of lifting a trophy.
I
Here was a sitting duck for a second didn't even know it
Ignorance is bliss good kills back though from the top players and that's the bomb yet again confirmed here in a
impossible 1v4 for magics poor guys getting hunted down from the b-side
already so even the save will not be allowed in this one
surely right PR slowly working his way up catwalk they're gonna take over
connector yeah magics is the dead man walking well a dead man standing still
yeah it's really tough to talk about some of these rounds when it is just a
failure to launch, you know, like, it don't, not getting that kill on Zellix, when he showed
himself he's taking a couple bullets. This is like, you know, classic instant trade moment
normally.
Yeah.
True.
In fact, so many bullets were missed in that second Zellix duel, I didn't even realize
it was done.
Yeah.
I thought it had to be, it had to be somebody else.
Spinning them, Spinks is 24-5 on each side.
Crazy.
Crazy numbers.
However, it is a 5v4 opening for Spirit as they get aggressive towards top middle.
That has actually worked out pretty nicely for them.
Some of these more aggressive starts when Maus are home.
There's also been times where they show some mid-attention and Maus that are redirected.
I personally think after what we've seen so far, even in the phase game versus Spirit,
You want them to be more aggressive everything that's been too slow
Has looked like the worst stuff honestly
Look at this vacancy after that kill they just totally let me go and now connector is under wraps
There's nobody off catwalk that's gonna be able to stop this split
And so now is just keep it moving. Yes down by a player
They're now kind of hitting the pause button maybe a bit awkwardly
Shiro with an MP9 tucked in. Magic's it's that 5-7 on Sandwich that may not get any help now as he's forced to reposition in the site yet again PR and space with a kill apiece and Shiro winds up coming up empty handed.
is still alive though that could be problematic always but the bomb actually
getting over to take it doubling back and they'll figure out where doc is last
player's been found there's an awkward amount of HP here for PR but now
Taneer is even worse off and the main is gonna seal the deal eight round T side
minimum here for mouse as we will go into the final round of this half with
spirit having one more buy it's lovely lovely at us mouse this entire half so
many good things to say. The trades were all there. As you mentioned earlier, no weak links.
The R&D, you know, the cleanup kills towards the A site somehow.
Speaks from getting opening frags on Donk, onto Nier.
Woof, insertion who we haven't had to talk about too much as he's just been leading this
crew comes in with an entry on Donk who will finish this half.
Donk, the CT side of Mirage.
Yeah.
Seven and ten.
It's been a lot of negative KD halves, I can't lie, it's um...
Teneir trying to claw it back with Zontics next to him.
They do get bomb possession off of their push into ramp.
Most certainly something to work with.
And obviously Zershin, one HP.
Not the place he'd want to be to try to get this back.
Right now Zershin's just hiding up inside of the apartments.
Maybe waiting for Magix to have pushed from the B site, but he goes up Catwalk instead.
It actually starts running forward with, again, one HP.
Oof, and he's lucky to be alive, but this is going to serve up a real distraction.
This could flush Magix back into Torgy if he's not careful.
Sure enough!
I mean, you've got one health, you've got nothing to lose if you're a Zershin, and now
you've got an open route, but again, you still never have the bomb.
But now they think that they get it.
They don't have vision on it again.
But the CTs haven't moved, so they aren't believing this.
This is actually the best thing they could possibly do is sit here.
All of the bombs are going to burn a lot of time.
Yes it is.
They've kind of lost the window where they can actually take the bomb back to B as well.
So...
Alright.
Just run this in.
Sheer on the line.
Easy pick up over Spinks.
Bomb hits the ground once again.
This round kind of getting away from Maus.
Time.
They got to get at this.
Tough one to figure out.
Zontix.
Go for kills.
Yet to make his move.
Seven seconds on the clock.
And churn up.
That one health.
Not never going to be enough.
the timing on the plant. You've got to go for the wall bang! Oh, he just got off the line.
Okay, an awkward moment that shows once more. Maus are not perfect, but my god, 8-4 on the T side.
I'm no critic.
Alright, we're at the Blast Bounty with Maus, who made it through the online portion of PR.
You play with a lot of different in-game leaders. You play with Snacks recently. You play with ETR.
Even played with Crisen before, how does Desertion compare?
With Desertion, it's not that set, and I would say I have more responsibility, you know,
but he's still calling like very well, and I would say it fits me a lot,
that I still have my, like, Aria, like in my way, how I would prefer, so it's a nice balance.
Let me swap that over to Desertion, how is that slotting in PR?
Yeah, I mean, it was a bit tough, we definitely had a period now with a lot of new players,
a lot of work, to be honest, to integrate all of them to the system that we had.
The easiest was Brolin because he knew a lot of the call-outs and stuff, but with him I had to basically every day
save an hour or an hour and a half after prac or before prac and
Show him the thing so I would say with all that was it was a bit easier because he's obviously younger so he has less of
Vision then for example, let's say jail when he joined us for those two tournaments
But I think that he slowly bringing a bit more of his own identity also for it
You worked with Ash for a pretty long time, now you're working with Cyclo.
They're two coaches that the scene really respects and we say they're kind of some of the best coaches in the space in general.
What is it meant to be able to work with two guys like that?
It's a really good experience, obviously.
With Ash, I felt like he was the first guy I met in eSports that I felt like he really understands me, you know?
So it was super easy after a few months to play my own game and I really like to work with Cyclo as well.
He gave me a lot of different view on things, you know?
So, yeah, I think I'm so far I'm super happy.
Looking at your team as a whole, I mean, I look at PR and what some of your highs were last year,
even Torsi being a top 20, you being a top 20, Spinks as well.
The only guy that I'm not quite sure about is Zellix right now,
but like, do you think this is the most firepower that Maus has ever had?
It's a good question. If it's the most firepower we ever had,
if you compare roll to roll, probably yes.
I think that Spinks is not in his prime at the moment,
Torgy is not in his prime at the moment.
We are yet to see with all that energy on what is their prime,
in my opinion at least, but I think in terms of raw skill and individual art,
like how good we are when we are on fire, I would say yes, yeah.
So what does that make the expectations for the season?
Well, at the moment we don't really have much expectations.
We are just trying to build a new mouse,
trying to build a new mentality,
trying to build all the time progressing and having that outlook more for the
further future at the moment because we are still a very young team so yeah we're
just going to see how it goes this tournament how goes the next one and
probably try to do our best for the major. Okay I guess my last question would
just be what would be a doesn't have to be a result or a placing but what does a
successful land portion of the bounty look like to you? Yes I have no
expectations like as he said we have no expectations since the teams like Vitality,
Furiya and Falcons are not even obvious, well, I think we have the best chance maybe to win, but as I said I don't
I think we take it step by step and game by game
Game by game says PR that's the approach for mouse as they make it in Malta, but
Well, this is the last game and it's going very well 8-4
T side for mouse on Mirage already have spirits dust to in their back pocket
And we've got donk at a negative KD and
Spirit just missed the window smoke to start
Spinks gets the earliest of duals
We got an execute coming over the top of ramp
Yeah, little labor effort shiro making a meal of that shiro
When do you see shiro misses p250 moments?
Well, he's not dead, still's got it.
Bomb comes scrambling over.
Now, they've already thrown out their utility,
so they won't have that smoke to follow up,
but this is still Maus without everybody over here on A.
Because it really did feel like a fake.
One smoke, Shiro misses a magazine, maybe on purpose,
and then back into the cover.
Could there really be three players ramp?
Put a smoke on Palace at a minute.
That's rough. Opens up lines here for the CT side and coming out of the A ramp just feels a lot less dangerous now.
See if Taneer tries to sell something at B before they actually walk out ramp, but they're right there now.
Torsi spots it, Spinks gets the Taneer kill, now the bomb has been fully spotted.
Zontik's the only player to catch a kill and Torsi, good for it. His second on this bomb site.
You've got magics and zontics in a two versus three good push into jungle. That's low health surgeon
But PR just finds the headshot on magics and zontics now take him down to low health as well as the CTs are looking to just
Split in on the retake those things is just always on the shadow, right?
Yeah follows forward and easy does it spanks up to 16 frags another pistol for mouse on dust 2
It was both pistols fully converted 3-0 both times
They lose the starting pistol on Mirage, but they had that force by win instantly as an answer
Yeah, the start of these halves have been mouse all day long
They literally saved their best stuff for Sunday and built into it
I mean they kept folding in some of the issues they have previously
They just thrown and developed so quickly in such a short period of time a
Reminder that you can always lie trade the game on Paulie market where for the first time
Mows are predicted to win this match like hard to not see it that way after you've watched some of these rounds
PR said if this goes to five maps, it'll be interesting it might not even get there
Jumping on the flash though
Still got Zershin in risk business with that tech nine of magics swept under the rug
Donk and Shiro remain and one will just fly out into the B-side.
Shiro, nice kill and an upgrade as Don simultaneously gets his on the other side of the map.
But the problem is Donk doesn't have the bomb and now they know exactly where he is.
I don't like watching this version of Donk, Mohan.
Yeah, no, same. I mean it's not, uh...
It's not been a good 24 hours.
They're using the magic's place against him.
Ooh, aww.
Saucy.
10-4.
Oof.
Just unroke the facet Gilo record as well.
Yeah.
Again.
Thought he was back on top.
It's playing a lot.
And truly, like, it's crazy to say, but he got carried here yesterday.
Didn't expect there to be a world war, you know.
He doesn't just get back to it.
That'll help.
Or will it?
Desert Eagle's across the board, Donk wants that M4. Yep, and he's grabbed it, and he's got Kevlar to play with too.
It suddenly feels like a real chance.
Donk is the only one with Kevlar, and you let him get in M4, and they're gonna see that it's gone.
Wink-o-pito, that's gonna clot right back, and you can upgrade the MP9 into that M4.
At the same time, as the commitment comes out from the ramp, it's a good flash, but
Magic doesn't swing out on it, and if he had, Zelex would have just covered off his teammate
and gunned them down.
Such a quick response here from Maus.
They don't let this round get away from them, so be it that one death occurs out middle,
at least you just kind of quarantine Donk, made sure things couldn't get wild, and now
sit pretty, 11-4, two rounds from being two up in this best of five.
Let's share in the highlights more some of the 4K and Frizzelix.
Bunkers had really two really good rounds in the series.
There's no...
That mid-kill on Torsi, the 1v3 clutch back on Dust 2.
So you get flashes on it, but none of the consistency.
I need answers.
And that's not even to say that they would simply win if that happened, that would just
make it competitive.
And, you know, famously, Miles were the first team to, like, counter-donk when he was in
his prime and, like, they beat him and they, you know, native him every round and gave
him a bad series.
They really haven't done that in this series.
They've just outgunned him.
A lot of 50-50 duels.
That's not utility that they used to kill him.
And some super insane game plan.
Oh, there is a good Flash Rite on A ramp.
Oh, Zealots gonna jump the AWPer, find the bomb on top of that one, creep out through
connector, hello and goodbye.
Torgie connects with his.
And as this game goes on, I can't help but still just be in such awe of Zealots.
You know, in his first outing with Zerzion as the IGL, the last time these teams met
was Atastana in the playoffs, and obviously just underneath the leadership of Zershin,
very fresh Zellex in that roster.
Things fell apart, they didn't get double digits on either of the maps.
Here we are, mere months later, and Zellex, a genuine cog of the success so far tonight
with Maus.
This version of Maus where Zershin isn't the stats leader game after game is looking genuinely
solid.
Is the formula for Maus finally coming together or is this a sign of where it goes moving
forward in 2026?
Because this isn't even a competition.
Spirit are getting embarrassed in this series.
Yeah, completely.
And again, not one weak link.
Not because Torji keeps this superhero form disaster of the event.
And it would never be like Maus to rely on any one guy.
What's impressive is just having multiple players having star performances simultaneously.
Eight map points for Maus.
A by-round that features only three smokes at a minute thirty-five.
You can already tell from the cameras the spirit feeling just elated in this second map
It's been mics up, heads in hand
You can sympathize as to why they have simply not been in this game on Mirage
It's like PR said, he's always been used to being the underdog, which kind of makes
him a good fit for mouths when they brought a new lineup and the expectations are lower.
And then to contrast that to what Magic said, where anything except first place is a failure
could vary different mentalities.
Here we go.
Trying to keep the game alive, Donk up Catwalk.
Some spam through the con smoke, PR is going to have a test coming his way.
Trying to tap back to the Cat guy in anticipation, the bandron reads it well, and he's only
taken 40 damage for these two duels.
Find Shirou in the back drop.
Damn near gets another.
So in a round where things were starting to get away from them, Malice have managed to
find a strong advantage.
An extra player and health on all three.
Byzantics forfeiting cover to the bomb plant tries to push inwards and now Donk's got a 1v3 clutch queued up
But he's playing with the off and if he doesn't deliver this map is done
They're gonna let that Zershin flank get into position
Donk surely starting to feel the squeeze as if somebody's creeping up on him and we've got multiple kits for the retake
Zershin sure enough from behind Maus will not leave any doubts on the table
Maus will leave Spirit back, black and blue.
Totally whooped on Mirage.
Less so of a competition than Dust2.
And we will be left scratching our heads and wondering what Ancient has in store for us.
Because this is a map whereby Spirit have a 7 map win streak.
Have not lost it for the last 3 months.
If Maus can end this series on that map of all places, they're in business.
that's what we're going to do.
We're going to have to go
into the next round of this.
It feels like mouths are already
surmounting the impossible. They
win that does to now they win
their map pick of Mirage in an
incredibly dominating fashion
13 for being our final scholar
and there and everyone from
now is showing up having around
themselves and having a showing
that you can walk away
incredibly proud of your teammates
even have an outside shot at an MVP if this goes long enough and Torji cools off, but
everyone from Mao's showing up at the moment. And, Donk, I believe this is five maps in
a row with under a 1.0 KD.
Wow. Damn, that is a truth-nuke move. The thing that we would have characterized Mao's for
having prior to this series starting was that they might, they do sometimes, have better
teamwork. Not only do they have better teamwork in this series, but the individuals are also
matching that level too. This is every win condition possible going the way of Maus,
where Spirit coming into the series, they had a lot of the higher rated players. I think
the team rating overall for individuals was higher going into this grand final, but they're
getting beaten in a lot of 50-50 duels frequently, but when Maus are also just pouncing with
with such great trading procedures,
it's very hard for any individual
to be a difference maker on Spirit.
Mouss have had great ideas as to the way Spirit
are gonna play both maps.
They've had great plans, strategies coming into the game.
You're saying their spacing is better,
their players are performing better.
They're, every avenue that you can look down,
Mous is performing at a top level right now,
which is not what we would have necessarily expected
coming into the series,
given how dominant Spirit has been in this matchup
for so long.
And I feel like you have to give them extra credit as well, Voo,
because you were saying there is that caveat to how well
Mazz have shown themselves on Mirage before.
It was up against a certain play style.
Spirit didn't adhere to that.
They played differently, and yet they still
were able to show off.
Spirit do have their play style on Mirage.
They do play.
I mean, they tried to pivot away from it a little bit.
Donk played a little more passive than usual.
But still, by the end of the half,
you're having Donk swing out to peek underpass.
You're having the aggressive plays from Donk.
And this is a map, more than any other map in the map pool for Spirit.
I think when Donk has an off-game, their CT side is in absolute shambles because of the way they play this map.
It's also not just the spirit of Spirit, I feel that Maus are breaking right now,
but it's also stats, records, and what has felt like an unstoppable Spirit at this point.
So far, for Blast Bounty, Spirit have been 11 out of 11 in converting their pistols, Maui.
But something about Maus was able to fight back and break that one.
They never gave a fair fight in that second round.
The way that Maus took middle made it so that any time any spirit player wanted to take a bite out of Maus,
there were two Maus players that were holding practically every line.
There's a high low here for Donk that he's swinging into.
Even for Shiro, he's basically swinging into three players.
I mean, that kind of setup and that kind of presence of mind for all of these players
to understand just how they need to angle themselves off the teammates.
And even though exertion here could have got caught at ramp, could have allowed Tier 2 to tuck in,
But he just kind of gets that little bit of a jiggle.
And you can just see how locked in all of these mouse players are
to understand they don't want to create losing conditions
by taking individual peeks.
They want to make sure that they're
showing up every line that Spirit want to take
by just being in these double holes.
And that happened on their executes, too.
It happened on that four-spy round
where they were able to hold every angle that Spirit
was trying to throw at them.
It was just so impressive on a teamwork level.
Yeah, as much as it requires a mistake
to lose an anti-four-spy, you still
had three AKs in the hands of Mao's perfect positioning as you're saying
doubling up on the angles and I don't think spirit played that one all that
badly it's more Mao's having a really good game plan and approach to a round
two break. And we talked about a game plan can only go so far you still need
individuals to step up a name that we've been seeing the praises of all week here
in multiple the side of Mao's is Torsi and round eight was no different from
either. This one required there was a few whips along the way this is not.
And I was like, well, Torgie's no Zywoo, but this comes from a late round, getting later
in the half.
You have a really solid B exec where they even lose the first player, but they don't panic.
They don't overheat.
They still play in the correct positions.
They get the second frag, and then this, this, the awareness here from Zilex, he knows Teneir
is going to come through this smoke.
He knows tier spirit is going to try and overwhelm that B site.
And then in the 3v2, they do lose the bomb outside of the bomb site, but again, they
don't panic.
Don't overheat and even with torsion missing so many off shots
I think he runs out of ammo in the often has to pull up the clock
He still closes it out, but still kept his cool at the end of it
The presence of mine to get the swing would have wanted him to close it out earlier for the highlight
But it was effective nonetheless
That also again kind of showed some of the just even though they lose the first pick
It's that they still are able to space their way in like you brought up with zelex
I feel like that's a little bit wise beyond his years because he has the bomb
He's probably thinking okay the utilities down. I got to get that bomb planted before all of these smokes of
Evaporate and he still just knows that there's they're trying to find a way back in the round
So really really wise beyond his ears at this point
Do you think there's anything less than a 100% chance that Tossie's gonna walk away with MPP?
It would have to go five maps
Have to really bought it up well over at polymark
We can have a look at what exactly is the percentage here for that prediction of who we think
I think our last Vanny season two MVP possibly could be.
Am I? Why is Jorco?
I do believe that Jorco is the second most likely MVP candidate.
That's crazy. I mean, it's really just a, it's kind of a two man race.
I'd say a third contender has entered the ring in Spinks,
but I would say it's too much ground for him to gain in order to try to overtake Torsi,
especially given Torsi had a really solid map one, another great map two here.
here. Like you said, boo. I mean, the only way it doesn't go towards these, if it does go all five and then don't just goes absolutely nuclear from this point onward. I would have to say more than 42%
I was just saying, how is there only a 5% difference in percentage for either towards ego space?
It's rough. People haven't been jet. They're sleeping on this one. That's what's happening.
Well, I mean, maybe I'll give him credit because Sphinx has been playing up a lot in this best of five, of course, even towards the tail end of their semifinals, best of three.
He was really warming up for himself. We weren't really sure where the confidence was. And whilst he has been consistent, Sphinx right now is playing on another level.
Sphinx, he had, in just in the finals, if it was finals only as an MVP, you could definitely make the case. He's been lights out.
This is the, this is the Spinks we were seeing when he first joined this roster.
There's several rounds where his team, they slow down in the middle of the map,
they slow down, something goes wrong, and he just gets his team a kill back on the map.
This one is ridiculous, by the way. That is ridiculous.
That one definitely shouldn't have happened.
If Spinks is going to be able to play like this and find these timings as well as he have,
then nows are absolutely a force because that was the other question we had coming into the
season. Where did Torsi's form go? Where did Spinks's form go? Because the last couple months
prior to Cologne or even in Cologne, they were weak links at time. It was sometimes like the
maybe JL or even sometimes Brolin or exertion were finding a lot of impact. But with Spinks
playing like this, it has completely changed the outlook you have to have when you're approaching
Maus. My only caveat to this, even though Dust2 stats look great as well in Mirage 2,
Is there an overlap in those maps where maybe we're not going to really be seeing him play the same way when it comes down to, you know, map number three for short, maybe a four end and maybe a map five as well?
I think he's in a pretty solid rotator position when you look at ancient, when you look into the later parts of the series. I don't know, I get, he's no donk, okay? He's not supposed to be performing this well, this long for this many maps.
That's needed for two maps in a row though, Voo. It's making me think. Maybe.
We have to question, we have to start the conversation.
Yeah, we need to have a conversation about how good he's been.
Okay, well you guys can have that conversation.
It's not going to be right now though.
We are going to head to a break when we come back.
Not only will that conversation continue,
but so will our grand finals on an ancient.
Yeah, and this is a map where Mao's struggled against Astralis on this one as well.
They really couldn't show up, they felt their game plan was effective,
but they couldn't actually perform on an individual level once they got to Ancient.
And this is an even scarier spirit compared to Astralis.
I feel like this is...
I mean, the thing is that looking at Mao's right now,
it just feels like they're so ahead of schedule if they're able to pull this off, though.
That's a scary prospect for a lot of the teams in the scene,
such as Spirit, who are supposed to just be lapping at this point with having a whole season under the belt with this five man lineup.
Yeah, let's take a step back a little...
Whoa, let's take a step back and first of all, restart that sentence, but also restart your thought there about what was that weaker part of Maus there when we did see them on Ancient.
Was there a moment where you're like, yeah, this is an easy exploit for Spirit?
Yeah, we highlighted PR on Dust2.
Ancient is another map where he plays the anchor, he plays the anchor of the B site.
So we've got around here. They're heavily contesting in middle mouses
And they leave PR on an island on D and he either has to get one there or stay alive
I think PR so often struggles when he's left on an island when I looked at him on gamer legion
He very often had a second player there
He had the resources that he could take duels and get aggressive you see him on mouse
They rely on him to be self-sufficient and these are the maps that he struggles most on so you're saying snacks is better than exertion
I would not say that. Okay. I would say that PR was their best player. He was now. He's their third fourth
Yeah, what the way PR is playing today them now show you surely something like this isn't as
You know it clicks for him today. Yeah for me for me
It's clicking for him today
Ancient was one of his best maps when he was on game religion at a 1.15 in that jersey
I think he's gonna take some of that experience here on mouse and he's gonna at least perform closer to the level that we've been seeing
more of on this Grand Final Sunday.
As much as I love hearing you guys talk about these two teams
and what they could bring on Ancient,
the only thing that could bring me even more joy
is just seeing if Maus are able to close out
this Grand Final or if Spirit are able to fight back on Ancient.
Oh, we are most certainly still waiting for Spirit to bring
fight.
We would love to see it here on Ancient.
We would have loved to see it on either the first two maps,
but it really hasn't happened.
And so we enter this third map with the Poly Market
prediction, favoring Maus.
They have done it. It's a title shift and you can understand why I mean coming into this third map donks
The highest rated player on spirit at a zero point nine eight
There's only two teams. I think that have reversed what best of fives. Mm-hmm beard did it twice
Oh boy, and I think fury I did it at the Thunderpick World Championship versus Navi found on the stake in this sounds right
All three sort of like studio small crowd events okay similar to this
Oh, right.
Ain't she a very good mapper for Spirit?
Ooh, I like this.
Yeah.
It does feel like a game where the stats are sort of irrelevant, though, with the form
that we're seeing right now from Spirit.
We didn't get 13-11 finishes.
Ooh, they got a little unlucky.
It was just a pistol that was a problem.
No.
Mouse dismantled them.
They look better from every angle.
And now the question is, like, can they upset one more of the test day?
More so than our Spirit going to come back into this.
This would be a map winning streak brought to an end.
I like that the desk highlighted PR's ability on this map specifically.
I think their mouse should be able to extract value from him for that reason.
But this defense doesn't wind up finding kills before the bomb is planted.
Got a whole lot of bodies here for Spirit and not a whole lot of positions to hide in.
They're gonna jump at this.
Yes they will.
Smoke spades, sphinx the first blood, whole lot of CTs on the other side of this block.
Doc, with one, extending outwards as a push connects on Torchy, that makes it way easier.
Good value here from Tenir.
Spinks though!
He's on for the ace!
I mean, this is a massacre at Spinks' hands.
Oh, but he won't get that fifth one, and it's Zontik's halfway through the 1v2.
Zertian's gonna have to just run over to that defuse, he grabs the kit, it's still gonna
come down to the wire.
I don't know if he's going to...
Oh my goodness, it's so close.
It feels like he missed it!
Yep.
Yeah!
Just a little too much of an ask.
He's on to his hangs on hell of an effort out of Spinks, but it will be Spirit with another pistol win for their sake this time they better convert it.
He's really trying to sneak an MVP right now.
A third map starting like this, the way that Spinks is playing is unbelievable.
Hitting everything, great awareness, he's getting opening kills on Mirage.
A reminder that you can always live trade the game on Poly Market.
And Maus very much taking over the numbers.
The numbers, Mason, what do they mean?
Forced by a moment here from Maus, with how they played today, you just can't help but
believe they might still throw a wrench in the works.
It's going vertical here. Love this stack, honestly.
You have the 5-7 pressed to the bottom of ramp, supported by the Sun Force.
A clean setup.
And obviously it takes four players with Zershin inside of the cave, so heavy commitment,
but it's the correct commitment as spirits stand.
That's pretty sweet of them. They smoked them on a cave,
which I think only makes it slightly more appealing to want to try to go here.
Magics, though, as the IGL is starting to lead over towards Donut and clear things out.
But it's all just a fake, the bomb is still over towards B, let's see if they keep this
boost going.
Oh, they've given it up.
Yep.
They bend the knee.
When they really should have just kept both feet on the ground.
The smoke buys them enough time to actually change their mind, but they're going for a
mid-reclear with that M4.
No, they're actually just going to A entirely.
Okay.
There we go.
Second guessing it now.
The moment, here's the gap.
M4 shifts back, but it's not shifting back in a good setup.
like what they had. You can boost again in this spot. And they're getting it in
position in time. Plus you spot a player because that flashbang landed so you get
the jump. This is gonna be Zealots on full alert.
Bomb plant goes uninterrupted. Man advantage at the very least. But that's
about the only advantage that Maus will have in this situation. No kit for the
retake, no utility for the retake, and three rifles to go up against. They're
taking their sweet time to get into position. No flank, no ramp. There's
nothing here for Maus, other than the forward push. And in doing so, they activate
Zontics for the mow down. Very nicely done here for Spirit. Yes, hanging on and
making sure that that pistol is not just smoke and mirrors, but actually the first
steps to the first strong start in this series.
clean converted they even have that small call to go back in a bid to feed into the
fear that maybe this P-stack was the wrong idea maybe it is gonna be a
donut crawl and there was nobody inside a donut to confirm or deny that
information so like that in a spirit they got what they wanted from the
beginning of the round but they weren't they were willing to work for it
It wouldn't be the first match at this event where Spirit kick it into gear once they truly
feel threatened.
You know, for an event that's single elimination the entire time, they almost have three chances.
Yeah.
It's the big thing.
It almost feels like Spirit like putting their head in the 18.
He's been able to pull the lever just yet, but we're not going to king shame.
Oh, that was pretty dangerous.
Just got to keep your head on straight.
And in this round, a very easy task.
Here's a question though. If Spirit do wind up winning a map at least in this series, will
it be because of Donk? That's also hard to say because then they kind of talk here without
needing to even get to that gear. I'm just going to be dumbfounded if Donk has two bad
series back-to-back.
They already dumped that in one of those three bad maps versus FaZe.
But that's bleeding light over into today, showing us that it's not, wasn't just a stroke
of luck, we don't exactly know what's going wrong.
TORGIE WANTS SOME.
TORGIE WANTS SOME.
We'll just die.
We're on this grand finals because of Shiro, and T'Nier, and honestly, towards the end
of that FaZe game, Magix's calls.
They started playing very well as a team.
That's fair.
But that's the only way they could have won, because FaZe actually also put up a really strong fight.
to get value out of the round.
Magix has got to fight Q'd up.
He doesn't want anything to do with it
because God forbid he loses man advantage.
Yeah, now it looks like they're cooking with gas.
We've got Torsi on a good line.
Actually makes it a two on two.
The bomb will sneak into the A site.
Shiro wants to come in kind of quietly here.
Looks like the right move to make.
It doesn't alert anybody.
The bomb gets planted.
The CTs can walk over.
It buys time for Magix and it also makes this smoke more effective.
Crazy ask of Maos to actually try to make this retake happen with PR only now clearing out lane and middle
They just don't have a kit
And there's none to pick up either. So yeah, this one is already a foregone conclusion spirit will keep it up with the 4-0 kickoff
Zellex looking for that first fight out middle gets his head ripped off in that little window that don't have vision
He's able to find impact and that's Donk up to 4 and 2 now off of a 2k in mid
So he's found his moment to strike already four rounds into this third map and Donk is showing us value
So all kinds of weird things that kind of go out the window if there's just gonna be you know in
Inexplicable different form, but you know you normally say donk is the best player in the world in taking me on a ship
No one is better at navigating these flashes getting spray transfers
is getting killed so quickly that he can do it in between flashes and then still stay alive.
But there's an example of it, so we'll just keep contextualizing what we're seeing, but there's a sign of life.
It's good value out of a frag grenade outside B.
Oh, are you going to tease us now?
Wow, wrong button.
Shiro had...
Oh, there we go.
Some Maltes.
Shiro has already surpassed his multi-kill total from the first two maps of the series,
one on Dust2 and Maraud.
Now, yikes!
I guess that doesn't help.
Donk sees this as an invitation to try to clear out the enemy.
A lot of body fill becomes around that smoke.
From 0-100 real fast, three players of Maus tasked to go deal with Donk and Zellex.
Nice clean up to deny that lane peek.
This is feeling like they were up against pistols with the fact that there's only one
casualty on the side of Maus.
Shiro thinking maybe he's got a gap, a window to take it towards B, but as he throws out
Util, he'll go back.
Yeah, but PR has already seen that he hasn't pushed.
So they'll remain two players both sides of the cave.
It's going to be a tough job for Shiro to ever fight his way out of this.
Kind of has to try though, because he will not save now in this position.
25 seconds to make magic happen.
Yeah, I was reading that it would be the high-low setup, but can't do anything to stop
Zellex who goes huge this round with the quad kill, sees Donk's double last round and shows him up in the follow-up.
It's a little tricky to way that Spirit approached it because they don't have a window smoke and so there's just this
fat, that one that smoked that's sitting there and Donk is walking around it,
but it does mean the CTs if they wanted to have really good lines.
And so many players they can layer up into that attack.
So on the fast rounds, Spirit about a great time taking mid. Here's one example of a slow one that doesn't go their way.
If Mauser tastes the success of a third half of the party, victim of the wall bang, down
to a third of his health, and Spirit try to keep that pressure on, not that Mauser shooting
back. Oh now they are. That's great damage. She got Shirou down to 10 and Don gets killed.
Empty handed this round. That lower health Torji opening angle works out wonderfully.
No spam coupled with that Molotov on the fallback so Torji gets out of dodge and hangs onto
the man advantage. But with a smoke from Spinks on his own position, he actually doesn't get
trapped. He was solo on HP if he didn't run out that soon. Couldn't get to watch mid with
this off really changes the setup PR unkilled just confirming they're still
back there and that they're trying to make moves to crack open the bomb site a
boost like that clear intention here from spirit well we're coming into this
late-round position with no smokes very sparse utility
Sphinx getting active on the flank.
Oh, Zellex feeling flushed in.
Has to catch a kill first, pulls forward with one,
Zershin awaiting this cave split.
I mean, a flank coming in.
They're pulling this round's over.
They're pulling the plug.
They do not want and do not believe
that they can get through this defense.
And so they are hoping to save instead.
And Zontik's kind of gets stuck in a position
where he could die out of time.
He's lucky to fall before the clock expires.
But regardless, it'll be miles with consecutive round wins.
And a spirit that was poised up for the B commit, but never really pulled the trigger.
I mean, Maus did a super subtle job of interrupting them every time they wanted to do something.
The Molly, the Molly long into the peek from Spinks to get the first kill that shuts down the attack.
The Torsi getting the upshot inside a cave, being able to fall back after their Molly.
Every single thing was responded to.
And so for that entire time, Maus just had a healthy setup all the way to the end of the round.
Spirit have been struggling to put together just a strong T-attack.
They're much better off when they can get those early kills quickly and go for scrappy fights.
Right.
Just that slower pace in general this week from Spirit that I don't think has looked the best on them.
We get another instance of it here in the Grand Finals.
Seekle, man! Don't you seekle! Let's go boys!
Zershin getting credit for that setup and I mean every part of that
counter of what Spirit we're trying to get out of it.
Double rifle by here for Spirit they're gonna try to just
force their way through the middle and it works for Donk. That spinks dead
and Donk quick to try to test
the edge of these smokes. Oh, Shiro great denial of Zershin
trying to explore that lane but there is a second player doing the same thing
And PR, he's gonna find a factor! He recovers this!
What a fine...
All of a sudden it becomes all in from A main, the jump up gets caught but not killed.
Torsi's working with minimal cover, but the two casualties are the two rifles on the side of Spirit.
Another smoke, he can't peek.
You're hanging onto the donut plate, they're gonna try to come clear of the donut, but with pistols they are denied.
PR behind Zershin is everything for Mounds this round.
A 3v5 recovery made possible to stave off what would have been.
Two rifles, winning a round for Spirit.
Yeah, just tripling down on that push.
PR goes back into the action, winds up dying.
Torsey, silent with the execute.
Big moment here for the newest piece of Maus
to really cut into that lead.
Only one round the gap now between these squads.
It's crazy to say that PR's hat now
is having three good maps in a row.
Torsey's having three good maps in a row.
Spinks having three good maps in a row.
Zalex is 7-5, like...
And this is having to come back into this.
Counter-Tank.
Yes!
Now that's a scrappy mid-control that's brought them success previously.
They don't have a ton of guns behind it this time.
That's the kind of round that Spirit have been trying to create.
You created it and you weren't ready for a very active flank from PR.
You're like trying to goage your opponent into fighting.
You just want to kind of trick them into taking all these aggressive maneuvers.
Mouss are going to be scared.
They will still try to go for mid control just because it's daunt.
Doesn't mean you can abandon your game plan, I think.
That's what's always historically made them good versus the superstar teams is they don't treat them as such.
Nice trade back by Donk.
Little to work with this round, so a headshot like that will help.
Smoked away from the following engagement.
And yes, okay, one player over towards the main, but Spirit are gonna just try to blight
us with a bit of a quicker tempo, and Donk delivers another Desert Eagle headshot.
Not his worst map in this series. Everyone's flanking flanks on flanks even and they're holding for his ontex. They
So now you confirm so he'll just wait an extra second pop up and clear it
But oh, so I'm just gonna burn a bit of time forcing Zershin to go kill him
We've got a kid on torsion of the three
There's also a kid on site
But that would obviously burn a bit to try to grab it and it's gonna be all docking ace or
Mows come through with the retake.
Kit player easy to the headshot.
They'll jump on that bomb, and they've got it.
That's just no problem.
They make this 4-4. It just feels like they're, you know, very much winning all of a sudden.
Fashion of which they've picked up these rounds.
Yeah, it's near with the, uh, old and savage start, 1980-R.
Oh, yeah, it's quick though.
You give Donk a chance, you tell him to unleash, and you've got another test thrown out towards
middle and this time, you'd think they'd keep an eye on that cave blank, but here comes again.
This time, the intended target just clear out the lane while that door was smoked.
Donk two players back there, PR kills Magic, now the bomb is suddenly stuck in that corner,
but PR smokes this out. We get the climb up. This is crazy aggressive.
Oh, the catch, you're on the back.
Oh, exertion, great cover.
Donk's starting to get back into the round,
but he's far removed from really the point.
Oh, that is it.
Tenir to catch the headshot onto PR
to put that B site to the test.
I know that Zershin is here inside of cave,
but even he's playing extremely active.
He's actually going to go Reclear B,
which helps out Torzi a ton.
You think this lets Torzi just take up angles?
Sometimes when he goes for those jumps, Donk punishes, but he switches into the off.
And this is fine time also for Zershin, this...
Base of Ramp.
Donk...
Didn't see it, and now that bomb works its way forward off-cave.
Will they anticipate such a move from Zershin?
They're playing with so much information.
They know he was here.
They are certain he was here, but back turn to him, and he gets back into the cover, dodging, dodging.
Oh! Zershin delivers both!
Now let's do it again and they find themselves in the lead a triple kill for mouses in game leader some out of craziest round win yet
Well some good game plan rounds, but this took everything and just a right amount of freedom for fear to feel like
He can leave his post which was such a strong spot to just sit in
We wouldn't have seen the impact though if he hadn't pushed out to this position really trusted his aim trusted that Zerch
He's come to help him out. I
I love that exertion trying to run away but then deciding to just pull this ground.
And we know that aim's reliable.
Awkward one here for Spirit as they forgo the lead and find themselves on a single AK
here in Doc's hands.
But it's feeling like Doc is doing what he does, keeping rounds alive even when Spirit
working with less. It's not too late for
Donk to have an impact on this series,
but even just if we have a close first
half this game could wind up getting
tight. We were talking about blowouts
at the beginning of this best of five,
and so while we watch Spirit kind of get
into gear somewhat, a competitive game
doesn't mean they still win this.
Finally, just for the first time in this
Grand Finals, testing Maus's limits.
PR, forced into the duel to the Tecdyne.
He'll drop no kill to show for it.
Surtian's taking damage, and now Teneir on a Tecdyne alone
has come up with a 5v3.
Zelex keeps the pressure on, a single frag from him.
And they have managed to find footing on this B site.
What's the retake look like here for Spinks and Porgy?
Got utility to make this uncomfortable.
They will flush one into the fire.
First frag easy. You could smoke the bomb or cave. They'll decide not to cover the bomb itself, that's going to bring in the next duel.
Donk's dead and you've got Shiro now capable of a clutch, but with no vision.
He may just bank on wallbangs.
Yeah, just got to. This could still get scary. Wallbang damage is there.
Forgy now low 20 HP with the kit.
Uniforce, Shiro's hand.
Check that spam from both sides.
And it is just a stuck defuse.
The right tools for the job.
Flushing each of those individuals into fights.
They didn't really want to take.
Maus just unraveled that post plan.
This is really turning into an incredible CT side out of Maus.
No matter how disadvantaged they are,
they find a series of correct decisions,
hit all their shots, make those kills look easy.
They bait magics into the right peek, they bait Donk into the peek out of the smoke.
Every trap that they're laying is working out.
Six straight rounds out of mouse.
And this is officially, you know, the closest barrier you get to winning in those last six.
I got PR playing the tall box. Not a bad spot to be versus a fast A-play.
He's the Flash though, he's been found.
So he'll deliver!
Another dink!
Sontik's down to 14!
Weird, cause those first couple bullets just fly towards PR.
No, no, they shot him but he got flashed.
Ah, that's what interrupted it.
Surtian, look at this push.
Yeah, Sontik's just a sitting duck, but that two-player push into the A site did open a door for the bomb to go down.
And we're at that critical point of what's left in this half, where Shiro and Ko, they
just need to try to hang on to the bomb plant.
Man advantage for Maus earned and a heavy flank, in fact not one player retaking from
the CT side of this bomb site.
They're gonna smoke off the long side, dog towards the ramp, gets a second kill, it is
3v4, cuts down Maus to size, Shiro gets his, and that's what they needed.
A chance to just plant the bomb and also breathe.
A bit of a late arrival from Maus as they were preoccupied
with that early A hit, and all of a sudden,
Spirit back to winning ways.
Just feel it, they just need to trim the fat
and get into situations like that
where they can post plant, Don can take fights like this.
I mean, this is obviously a fantastic display of aim.
In all these previous situations,
Maus were in a similar spot.
Here they had numbers.
This would have actually been not that difficult.
They went one for one on Donk.
But like you said, it's not too late for him
to have an impact on the series.
Molly spreads, Spade sports used to smoke in the flash of a good.
The shots though leave a little to be desired.
Oh, not on the side of spirit though. Great execution here from Duncan Taneer.
Mao's happy to sign up for one more Fisticuffs in mid at the start of this round
and it costs them dearly.
Tenir and Donk barely survive that clash.
But they have got this B site under wraps.
Saw Torji leaving.
All eyes on cave.
Finish off PR and Torji freed up to try to win this,
but a deep push in from Tenir is going to put it on ice.
Another moment here where Spirit make it slightly more interesting
right at the tail end.
Two to close out their T side.
I'm telling you now, I predict Vitality would take this whole thing.
Oh, you're very confident.
Well, you know, I've done my research.
Um, well, I do now.
Did you?
I mean, no, no, no, no, no, no, there's more to predictions than that.
It's not just wins and losses, there's map pool, there's... there... hunger.
You mean, you mean they're hunger to win?
No, I do mean they're literal hunger.
I've been following them around.
I'm watching them at dinner.
I'm making sure they eat breakfast together, all of that.
You've been, you've been what?
I'm making informed predictions, okay?
And plus, I know a guy.
You know a guy?
Who?
Hmm.
That being said, the next game will be better.
You know I need to, let's show them a map.
Hello?
Hey Kenny.
It's me.
Who?
Maui.
Maui Snake, the analyst.
I'm the guy that made the ZYWU lack of cultural impact between all of France block me.
So who do you have to win the event?
I don't know, Vitality, whatever.
See, I told you, he agrees.
Did you just hang up on Kenny S?
The first 2-0 versus Vitality in quite some time.
It may have taken two and a half maps to get here, but Spirit suddenly turning this game
into a more competitive affair.
It was a 4-0 start where Mauser was able to answer convincingly, and then those last couple of rounds added to the board as Doc is explosive here on Ancient, a 13-8 score his best half so far this Grand Finals.
Yeah, just looking way better, and right at the tail end, but it's literally correlated to his kills, getting the rounds, kind of what we've been waiting for so far.
I hope you're a little surrounded here.
They're coming in on both ends.
Donk on the fallback.
No!
It gets away from him!
And from Zontics!
Desertion leading the charge
kills two on the approach.
And Mao's picking up a pistol after having
given a few away.
Wait, I didn't see that.
It's an ear can't collect one either.
So this has been all of spirit coming up empty-handed
in the pistol round.
A moment where Maus will put Spirit right back into the pot, temperature rising here
in Malta, as Maus inch their way closer to that trophy lift.
No kills here for Spirit on this pistol.
Donk had a fair few shots to work with there on the defense outside of the smoke, kind
of played it well considering how much was coming at him, but he was the only guy on
A. There's another great call here for Maus, pick a vulnerable site overall.
CT's with a bit of a lean on this B site, but bombs sits outside of it, feels like Xershin
was just sizing it up.
Everybody contributing utility to Xershin.
We've seen Mao's actually storm into stacks previously to convert their pistols.
Kill like that sure as hell helps.
We'll back to a headshot to get the ball rolling, Zontics traded out, and so numbers strong here to start, but Spirit down to two.
Donk still remains, but on the other half of the map, where there is no effort from Maus,
Magix just kinda looks into the void, accepts his fate, lets that wallbang collect, and sure enough, Maus a slow squeeze into the B bomb site will convert their pistol.
get all these best of five grand finals just three O's. Yeah. Yeah. We've had a lot. I remember,
you know, Val finally give us best of five finals on our entities for years, for a decade.
But when a B05 finals is competitive, there's no better feeling. It's worth the flat ones, I think.
And as of the next major, third, fourth place to Cider Games.
No, not excited about that.
Which makes a ton of sense for, no, they've always been great.
Some people aren't even a fan of having them more often in events.
I actually think they've been pretty good.
I think so, and I think sometimes, you know, they do matter.
So, yeah, every game
It doesn't matter for me, RS and S are screw up, but they actually do
Especially at a major, like, you know, I'm
It's hard to feel like a winner when you don't come first
But hey, I came third, not fourth
That's a major
Yeah, it's not over yet, but it is
Getting into that real dangerous territory spirit, knowing that they're probably going to have to forfeit another round here.
Can magics argue that humanity lost if they lose this series?
I don't know.
I don't think so. Muzz are super fresh, they're looking really good.
Three weeks with this new roster.
And each individual on Maus having moments throughout this best of five.
Insertion's calling is actually just flat-out spectacular at this point.
I mean, we were wondering if it was predicated on him being able to call around himself.
Well, that just hasn't been the case either in these last few days.
I think it makes a lot of sense for him to start his journey as an IGL with that formula.
And then as we've given him more time and more support from Cycron and ZipX,
I mean, Mali does have supportive elements that you'd think would shape their leaders
Walking into a new role, utility damage racking up here is again Spirit had so little to play with
and weren't able to stop that bottom plant. Easy clean up for Maus. Four rounds from victory in Malta.
Another two kills in for Donk, but that's kind of it.
May the true test begin.
Quick for the AWP boost.
And it is only Magix at this V-Sight.
They're gonna try to test that smoke.
Magix cutting one down to size.
Oh, nice spam through, just killing PR as they were looking to disengage a bit.
So the first gun round boasts real well here for Spirit in an opening 5v3.
Oh, that's nice, he could step up the enemy right away, however, come back for Zellix.
That's a good guy to think out of the round.
Could this still get away from Spirit?
Looking at some of the score lines of the Spirit players left alive in this situation.
Contrast that to how hot Torgie is to me.
Miss shot at a Shearer.
Oh my goodness, that was crazy.
Little awkward between the AWPers.
They'll both peel back.
Now what's the move?
Throw the AWPer on the box, try to give him a line.
Tenir gets active to make sure there's map control here for Spirit.
They are very aware of what is to come if there's still commitment here from Maus.
Miss Molotov on the execute won't help and a smoke grenade on ramp starting to feel more
and more like a save at this point.
Final act of desperation with the smoke spam, but no frag means no entry points.
And so Maus, no better.
Three saves with their money and those guns, it's not too bad.
And it'll be magics to win the round with his two kills running forward into that exact exactly what was coming as the solo defender
Yeah
It honestly looked like that attack was gonna work for a second
Doc regaining vision, him and Zontics win the duel.
Actually turned out to be the CT flashes that were just a little bit better.
Dangerous game to play, going for those mid clashes, but you know what you're signing up for every time.
Tenir just tucked in to the site box.
Tall box, rather.
Not gonna see a damn thing.
dangerously close game for mouse in another moment where you're stuck in an
early 3v5 leg shot on to near mouse would have loved for that to be an
opening pick it's gonna elicit a peak here from Zha'zix now you've won to the
third player there are weak pieces here for spirit just don't me to think all
It's just gonna be a nightmare, surely.
Thought maybe if they tried to wrap through CT spawn with Zershin, things could get interesting.
For now, they'll take up their position in Donuts, and Zershin is inching forward at the 22nd mark.
Swing, denied. Zontik's dead. PR still with 50 HP.
We've got this position in Scythe's 5-Doc, and Dog's gonna draw the line in the sand.
Zershin in that CT spawn misses and shot! No way!
And it's all going wrong. Torsche dead to Donk as well.
It still would have been a Hail Mary moment with so little time left over.
The announcer dies after time, and this one becomes incredibly awkward.
Spirits have put Maus in a tough spot with this hold.
We just caught the tail end of that fight. Don't know exactly what.
Probably wouldn't have mattered though, with the extra two guys on end, without winning his duel.
But yeah, it's great CT utility, even though the T flashes, it felt like we're gonna be the big difference as soon as they came out, it was the later CT flashes that allowed John to get the first fight.
It's one of those milliseconds where your brain thinks you hit the headshot.
Yeah.
Oh, here we go.
It's actually a light...
No, okay.
They go all in.
They're running in a weird spot.
Yeah.
Saving three.
They're trying to crunch the numbers.
I thought maybe Zellix would just try to pick up one tool for the job, but we go two rifles,
three pistols, as Maus are trying to fight Spirit for this lead, not wanting to tie the
game up.
This is where you're looking at the supporting cast of Spirit, as I just don't drop a situation
like this.
Man, they want this mid fight again, huh?
That's wild.
They've been signing up for this fight.
They've been on the receiving end of Donk more often than not, and it's three players
strong here for Maus.
Donk to the hole.
Pop by Zellex.
Let's stop.
One AK on the round.
And things get interesting.
Xontix thinking about testing the smoke as he emerges.
Two sets of eyes on it, but he will get both kills.
That is a spray and a half out of Xontix.
One player that can use an upgrade here.
The second gun they could even grab off of Zontics if they wanted it.
Yeah, there's that Galil down there as well on his teammate's corpse for PR, but.
Okay, they'll just chuck him the AK towards you grabs the guns so that they can keep a player up on ledge.
What's the move here, Maus?
It's crazy.
They've got so much utility to, I mean, these two smokes.
After they block window.
I love there are three smoke cell red smoke as the bomb has already worked its way halfway to that B site
The longer this goes on the stronger the spot gets for magics
She are now tucked into the opposite cave room
In anticipation of some kind of a mid play, but it wasn't to near to go push out middle. He's just simply
Hit the back of this B site, instead looks to tuck into the corner.
This is a Teneir who's playing from 5 and 12, met by utility.
He'll pop open that smoke and try to catch them crossing in, goes for the dual and will kill Surtian.
Magics in spot, worth it.
Torji, 1v3, 10 seconds, and they will just collapse down on the attempt from Maus.
It's a great opening move from Zellex.
He gets that dual picked up over top of Donk, but value from Zontix as he tests the edge of the smoke.
and from the 3v3 Spirit Thrive.
He's going for edge odds now.
2k spray down on his on ticks to equalize.
It's a confident push.
That would have been a robbery.
The investment for mouse that'll sting a bit.
Enforced to bend the knee.
Spirit have either swept or bend swept
in four straight Grand Finals.
Today we could buck the trend.
The shot shot.
Certainly not a whole slate.
Clomcross is over, but what do they really have to work with here?
Not a single set of Kevlar, not one made.
So the guy like Donk is going to make nice
beats of the first couple of kills and spirit to double digits first.
Once that missed shot came in, I wish we bought some utility for that one, but they had to
save up for this attempt.
Speared up done a great job of messing their money up, winning all the right rounds.
Another mid fight.
Oh, Don takes the jump.
Yes, sir.
From the top shelf, Spinksdahl recovers.
Joe Don takes those flashbangs, set him up,
but as he tries to extend in for another,
Janiere, the last piece of this midhold,
could be going into a duel versus the bomb carrier
in a moment.
Instead, he will disengage.
Happy to try to hang on to this 3v3.
Dorje on the walk-ups, got a teammate right behind him.
It's him insertion operating as a duo here in mid
And not only does teneer have to hang on to the donut play, but he's also the only a site defender
It's another trait PR gets it's not be magic's activated. He's confused. He starts looking the wrong direction
What an aggressive
2k clutch offered up
Absolutely frazzles Torji, doesn't know which way to look.
I don't know what was going on as a J.R. Smith moment there for Torji.
Because if there was more players on the map, maybe you could point to a distraction, but not sure what he was registering in his mind.
Either way, and then it's the other attack, the Nade as they approach, and Magix gets that kill as well.
He would have loved to blow that smoke open himself.
Another round where Maus be operating with less, another round where Dog takes over Middle
to no contest.
Early numbers at A main.
It's an oppolous shiro over towards that A site.
Zersion's just chucking a full fake of utility into this B site, but there's already a press
down the ramp here for magics.
So he'll kill Zershin, is just gonna put the ace like on guard as Shiro from the back,
turns into two, made easy, Spirit are on the brink of securing a 12th, and with it, three
map points.
Their win streak on Ancient about to be extended as this T side out of Maus just simply can't
break through.
Finally in this grand finals we got a showing out of Donk, the surfing of the best of five.
He'll be killed in this one as the 2v5 recovery begins, but it's a hell of an ask of PR and Torji.
He got little to lose here, so they will fight for it, and Shiro continues to collect kills from inside site.
He's going to go for the next one, and he has got himself a quad kill for the road, trying to extend this game to Nuke.
Got one of his best rounds so far. Not on the off either.
Mous have been on nine rounds for a while now, so Spirits starting to write the story for themselves.
I'm not wasting a good dumb performance either.
This T side is the pistol and the 3-0 start from Mous, that's it.
Six rounds CT streak, no bomb plants in the last four.
No denying spirit have come alive
Insertion just hit by flashbangs takes up a path through lane almost getting hit by that wallbang damage, but he'll be fine
So coming at me a little differently there are a lot of players still here for spirit once that smoke fades in red room
They'll be looking for info and potentially duals
that need just a little bit ahead of the walkout three players from elbow careful
I'm going to reload Zershin responding to the spam from magics that's just been
constant since the start of the round spirit reading this correctly with the
four player B setup problem is sometimes if you you play inside cave every
position to be smoked or mollied out.
Big activation as PR runs forward, blindsided by Shiro.
They're gonna have a hard job getting them out of here
with so many players on site.
Sure enough, the defense delivers.
Spirit will deliver in this best of five.
A rock solid defense to extend their streak.
They refuse to lose on ancient
and they refuse to be embarrassed in this best of five.
Yeah, fair enough.
They don't look back when they start winning.
Donk score line looks good.
This is a much healthier looking spirit
as they close this game out.
And it wasn't 13-11.
I mean, they just looked flawless
all the way towards the end.
So fantastic job for spirit to give us a show.
Finally seeing some fight in spirit here.
And finally, not only a competitive map,
but it feels like some competition
has arrived in our grand finals here.
Mals were looking on track to be able to get a 3-0
themselves but there's still plenty more opportunities in the max to come and you can't be too disappointed
because finally we're also seeing don't show up all the spirit working together. Let there be a
lesson to you don't will not have six sub 1.0 pd maps in a row that will simply never happen.
My lesson my lesson learned. Mouser's lesson learned too. I doubt it has happened. Definitely
not while he was wearing a spirit jersey at least. This was a much better showing from him. This was
was a better look from Spirit.
It was the first time I actually thought to myself,
OK, maybe the Mao's game plans aren't
going to be flawless on every consecutive T side.
So back to the drawing board, I think
that this is one that was definitely,
you needed to see some fight from Spirit.
A couple of their players actually
showed moments of resilience, even when
Donk or when the opening kick goes the way of Mao's.
Like Zontics, for example, coming up
in the mid-late rounds.
Magix himself, too.
There are a lot of heroes here for Spirit.
but I think that Donk's shown the brightest for sure.
Yeah, you look at the CT side for Maus, it was very solid,
but I really think Spirit did get the better of Maus
in terms of the game plan going into the second half.
They overloaded middle,
and Maus just continually went back to the mid-play
until they were too far, too late,
in terms of actually getting themselves into the game.
They required some clutches that they just couldn't pick up.
They couldn't get the 2v1 on Magix,
and at that point it's just over.
I know the play is gonna get a little bit of a longer break
between map three and four,
but sure is still sitting at his PC there.
I think working away at some of his settings.
Questionable.
I mean, he not really sure what that's about.
I feel like he's fairly meticulous with his setup already.
I don't know why he would need to stay for longer.
Maybe James Banks can catch him and ask him why.
Maybe, but he's going to have to trample into the side there.
But yeah, he's still working on it.
And we could talk about more of ancient here
because whilst it was a much stronger start from spirit,
obviously considering how map one and two have gone,
Mouse fought back really hard for that CT side, but towards the tail end,
that's where my question marks come about of this mouse roster,
because it feels like this half is surmounting to something for you,
and then it's just no longer even an option.
Yeah, we saw Mouse, they had their problems against the Stralis,
and then we saw Spirit, they ran a couple of the same exact strats,
they had the same ideas, Mouse tried to adjust things,
but when you're playing against the Spirit Squad,
that has a solid idea of how you want to be playing,
I think they can bring it back as well.
And here we're seeing a round where you actually have PR on the A site.
This is very rare for Maus.
They really play off of the A site almost every time.
But it's the same strat you saw almost identically from Astralis.
The fake A into the walk up on B.
Usually PR would be there alone.
In this case, they actually have nobody on the B site.
So it's a free plant, even though they go two for two on the other side of the map.
And then you have Donk.
This is where we saw Donk.
I think we all saw this and talked to ourselves.
This is Donk activating again.
That's what you need if you're a Spirit fan,
if you want them to win this series.
It is just ridiculous how Donk is able to shave them off
so cleanly, creating 1v1s against the team
that has just been bar none.
The best trading roster that we've had at the bounty.
The fact that he could just always get these sliver peaks
off, sliding away between the fights
and the time to kill is just ridiculous.
Something we were missing from the first couple maps.
Now, not to take away anything from Spirit,
because yes, again, everything that they were doing
was right. Seeing these openings in Maus being able to make adjustments throughout rounds
as well as throughout this map here for Ancient. But I do have to bring in the question. You're
this close on the side of Maus to lifting a trophy. You're in the lead when it comes
to rounds as well. And then we see a lot of things fall to the wayside. Small mistakes
that we haven't yet seen in this grand final. How much of that mental aspect is being factored
in compared to Spirit also showing up? It shows up probably in their heads, but also
in the server. We had a couple consecutive rounds from Maus where they just wanted to
throw caution to the wind. They wanted to take early 50-50s, which often time ancient
can be about, but for a team that has been so procedural and methodical with angle clearing
and working together to have two consecutive rounds that are just kind of getting spammed
through smokes or running gray screened, that didn't feel really like the Maus approach
from the first couple maps. And so you see it also happen on round 17 where, yeah, they're
just kind of flying through hoping that they get the better of them. This is
sometimes the game when you're playing ancient that you're just hoping your
flashes sort of counter theirs that your timing is better than theirs. But I was
just surprised to see that a bit for miles because you've when you stretch
the rounds out when you have when you just get centered and go for these full
just bomb site hits or kind of a late control procedure that's where you've
been really strong. I think the difference you see between 16 and 17 16
they're expecting the stack up in mid so they try and go through the top ramp
the mid smoke. 17. They're
expecting the double up on B
so they go through the mid
smoke. And the problem is, as
you're saying, you wait until
the late round. You can pivot
them around the map. You can
drag them into the wrong
spots. If you just go for the
50 50 at the beginning of the
round, you're really just
gambling that they're in the
setup that you're hoping
they're in. This is something
that does kind of fall through
mouths. His fingers when
you're seeing these rounds,
they're playing out back to
back like that. And so a
reset towards what is going
to be map number 44. New we
don't have to talk about the
of it for me where you go, we have lost to this team seven times in a row with your mouse
and you feel like you've finally gotten something over them when you take out map one and two
and then map three falls the way that it does you start questioning who needs to be that person
that steps up and how are newbies going to handle that pressure too. To me this is just perfect for
the gentleman's sweep for mouse that they just kind of let spirit have that one then you get the
long mental reset say okay remember we still are two one up in the series and now we're going to
to a nuke that we are way more comfortable creating rounds
on the T side.
There's so many more options.
We'll get into those, of course, later.
But I don't think that this should actually
have Mao's lose a step.
What I was surprised to see is that Zellix, who's never
been at this kind of stage before,
had actually performed extremely admirably
on that ancient right there, even taking the fight right
too long, winning it in 50-50 duels.
So I thought he would be flustered by the moment
being on the precipice of victory,
but that was not the case.
Yeah, I think in terms of things to look forward to,
You have the rookies for Maus, I think they've performed pretty admirably in all three games
so far, even in the defeat.
You still had PR showing up, you still had your rounds from Xelex.
I don't think there's anything to be too worried about for Maus, but I think you are right.
You do have this kind of underdog mentality for Maus.
I don't think they would have expected to have two dominant victories in the first couple
maps.
Now you're thinking you can win it, but at the same time, that's an ancient that Spirit
is extremely dangerous on compared to a nuke where I think Maus is the more dangerous team
there.
time because every day we have been bringing this up and whilst you've been riding that high of
Donk, he hasn't necessarily been delivering to the high that you've been putting him on
until now. Finally, it feels like he's showing up on ancient. I think there's at least some of it
comes down to Spirit having some good, or Maus rather, having some good game plans, good ideas of
how Donk want to play. And this is a map where actually Donk has in the past struggled. He's
Sometimes he takes those mid duels.
They used to throw him into the meat grinder quite often.
More recently, they've given him more opportunity
to actually play his game.
But he still, at times in this game,
as much as he did show up and he did have a solid game,
there were times where he was still taking
an individual duel and losing in ways
that I think a donk at peak form
would have done even better in this game.
The pistol round is one that rings out to me.
That we're not seeing 100% donk by any means,
where he had a player running at him through donut,
through a smoke, and he used all 12 bullets of his USB magazine
and was still unable to come up with the kill.
But it's crazy that he can put up a 109 ADR
versus one of the best teams in the world.
For my eyes, you're having a B game, maybe, for Donk.
I don't even, it's definitely not an A game,
absolutely not an S tier game.
And yet, that's just him at 80% power.
Pretty crazy to see that, though.
And of course, now it feels like this is just the beginning
of what should continue going on.
and the flip side where we were talking about how maybe the pressure is
amounting for miles. The interest has to be said because Spirit loved to talk
about their energy levels a lot. And I also like to bring it up because when
you see these player camps, it's so hard to read or really know, is this
frustration in yourself? Is this frustration in the team? And who is
bringing it to the point where, yeah, actually, this is fine. We're a team
that has reversed what before and we're a team that isn't going to buckle
under the pressure of already being two maps down.
I think this is part of the benefit of actually having a coach behind you,
Whether it's Sotfic, whether it's Halley, you can go between maps, he can rally the troops, make sure you're on the same page.
The concern I have is when the players aren't showing any tilt, you know, when I see Donk get a little frustrated, I go,
that's just any day that ends with a Y. When I see Donk sit back in his chair as if he doesn't care anymore, that's what I was worried about seeing.
We didn't see that at any point.
I would be worried about a lot of teams, and I was thinking on Mirage or after that, was Mirage a must-win map for Spirit,
for Spirit, but because they've actually proven before that it doesn't matter who they play
against and it is just more can they get into the series, that was why I actually wasn't
completely worried.
I still think it's entirely possible Spirit just closed this one out, winning Nuke, winning
Cash as well.
I think the series is totally still up for grabs, obviously lightly mouse favored still
because of the two maps, but it's not that this is by any means an impossible task.
I would say my potential concern is I think if you get the Cash, Spirit have some reps
on that.
the game. We're going to be
winning map five, so miles
need to close it out on new.
Oh, that is a lot of pressure.
They're not that they weren't
already feeling it. So thanks
to that one, but of course,
that it is so capable in the
hands of mouths. They just have
to want it a little bit more.
It feels but on the other side,
we're talking about spirit. And
before we got into this matter
before we go into our grand
finals to negate James Bank.
Some words. Your individual
season, it seems like you're keeping it up at the beginning of this season. Have you
been satisfied with your performance here? This season started for us not so good
because it was a long stage and our performance was not so perfect but right
now we keep it way about our performance as a team and also as
into all performance also and right now I feel like we have a good forum but
we're kind of almost better but we'll see. In terms of we'll see a lot of people
are thinking that Spirit are just clear favorites to win this tournament right
this would be your second ever career trophy do you feel like you guys are the
Do you feel like it's in your hands?
I think we feel we are favourites, but we respect every team.
I don't care which one we are playing against.
We will try to play our best game and then probably we'll server it or not.
Now, yesterday Magix told me that in that phase game, sometimes the energy in the team was not so good.
I think you are one of the people that almost always has good energy.
Is there a bit of responsibility on you to keep that energy across the best of five, across the final, for the other members of the team?
Sure, I'm trying to always be good with good energy, but not always it's happened also
for me, because sometimes it's really tough games or my game is not so good because maybe
unlucky moments, maybe I don't have good form on this map and sometimes it's happened.
But for sure, everyone in the team can support everyone.
And it's helped a lot because if we have bad games or bad situations, like yesterday
on Ubisoft we have 10-6 score, lost pistol rounds, we're just trying to control the situation
and don't care about, oh my god, we will lose soon or something like that.
We're just trying to play our game, and for us it's helped a lot, and we just won the game.
Tenir is definitely someone that has always delivered on the energy levels.
It feels like no matter what time you catch him, however, we're not always catching him after every map.
And so it feels like whilst it was high there in the pre-series or our pre-Gran finals there,
I do wonder, because he himself is having a rough 1-2.
I know we've highlighted Dunker struggling a bit, but that's because he normally stands out so far.
This time around teneer has normally been a great backup for them, but in the grand finals
I am questioning where has he
Like gone he's not showing up in the way that he has for bounty
teneer's biggest strengths so far prior to this grand final was picking his timings well on extremities
Understanding that if spirits going the bulk of spirit is going one way that he needs to find that time just kind of like Spinks has
But I think that he's kind of he's more or less met his counterpart in spinks at times
I think he's been the one that's actually been lurked on he's lost some of those duels kind of actually reminds me of
How in Rio he had a really great tournament up to the Grand Finals and then he met rops
That's kind of the same sort of a deep
I'd say that Spinks is not quite there today with rops, but actually, you know what I take that back
He's better
Actually better it's just that for the last couple months
It's been a little bit rockier for Spinks whereas Teneir has kind of felt a high but yeah
Spinks is just making a lot of great reads encounter to him
I think Teneir of a bit of an X factor for the spirit roster you have the dawn that you know
Well, you should know it's gonna have a great series every time you have shiro
That's almost always gonna show up and perform but for so long in spirits tenure
You've really struggled to find that second rifler star
Teneir has been that guy, but hot and cold at times and we're seeing he's he's on the cold side in this series
He's in some positions. I know he traded with magics in a couple of positions on a few maps because on the rotator positions
He wasn't necessarily performing as consistently as they wanted and I think his spirit are gonna take this one home
They need to near to perform today on this map
I know every pro player has their ways to try and warm up to put themselves
Whether it's mentally in the mindset or just in the server for themselves
But for you guys at home, one of the best ways for you to warm up and of course also become quite consistent is heading over to refrag
There's a lot of fun that we've been talking about over the last few days. There's a lot of movement modes here that you can do
We were talked about the the coaching assist that can happen as well
But one that we haven't mentioned yet is there's a bootcamp mode where it automatically switches between the mode
So you kind of just keep going keep grinding through all the different things that you can train as soon as I got a refrag
Code this is exactly what I went to especially on cash to just get my feet wet with every possible game mode so that I was ready
the first time I queued it up. Unfortunately, no one queues it in North America, so I haven't
actually been able to do that. But if I were to actually want to practice any map of the
pool, it's a great way to just make sure that you know your ins and your outs, the proper
routing, the standard angles that you're going to be facing up against that day.
Yeah, they also put you on some angles that actually will happen in a real game. You're
going to take these fights in a match, not quite the same way, but you're going to take
these fights in a match. You wouldn't be surprised to see all of these engagements, and this
which is going to give you a great way to practice, to warm up, and you can spend lots of time in there if it's changing your game mode consistently to keep you active and aware.
My only thing is if you're doing it on cash, it's wasted potential because that's a whole way to map 5 in our grand final, but it's 5.
Right? It should just do it on Mirage and Dust 2. That's what I learned from my premier games.
That's what I learned from this series today. It's the first two maps. It's all anybody wants to play as Mirage and Dust.
You're going to sell us on the cash then. You're going to sell us a little bit more, Maui.
I'll do it.
I wish Overpass was in the pool still.
I have a video called is cash good. Yeah, oh really? It says no
I did you want to give us a TLDR estimation of why not?
I think it's the most simple map in the map pool. Everyone thinks they love it
Everyone out there is saying no wrong cash is great. Give it a minute. Yeah, they're gonna hate it
Yeah, I mean phase that did make it look interesting
I want to see more teams adopt whatever they did
But also I just see CS 2 being a game that every cool little play that you crafted unlike CS go
You just throw an aide break the smoke. Oh, you were trying to sneak around not today
We'll see if it's as simple as that if we get to cash if we get to our map number five
The only thing that we know for sure is that we are gonna be able to see nuke
We are gonna get to a map four which is happening right after this break
So takes you don't often react to things that happen whether it's good or bad in the game
And I know for you, it's your personal personality and how this goes down
but when moments happen in the game do you have a
A emotional reaction in somewhere like when it's good or when Halle comes over to you and says like you've done a good job in these
Crazy moments. Do you feel something at that point? You cannot choose to feel an emotion, but you can choose
The way you express it you can choose whether you want to express it and of course I do feel something, but I
Usually prefer not to express
Has there been a time where it's hard not to do it or have you mastered it?
Is this just the Zontics way that, okay, I can do these things and I just play it?
And do you think that's better for your internal heart rate, your body and just your focus?
It's definitely improving my focus, but sometimes there are situations where you're too off,
that if you just cream for a little bit it could be beneficial for you, but I'm not doing it anyways.
But I don't think it negatively or positively affects my team for example.
But I wouldn't say that I'm holding it inside anyways.
I think probably I'm on average just less emotional.
That's just your personality.
Now yesterday was a very tough game against FaZe.
What do you think made it so close in your opinion?
What was lacking from spirit?
Magic said it was like energy, but were you noticing some things in the rounds that was not up to standard or not what you guys prepared and planned for?
Yes, but there was a lot of rounds where we just couldn't kill, to be honest, and it was...
I kind of could feel it better, energy. You can feel that energy is down and you can't kill because there is not enough concentration, not enough energy.
So you just kind of accept it, because you see that people are not in their best physical shape to play the game.
So there is not enough communication, we are not winning duels, and of course it's going to be hard.
But then we were able to wake up and it was enough to win in the end.
It was enough, but I want to come back to what we were talking about, about your focus.
You were stable pretty much across the whole series, right?
You were the deciding factor in some moments as well.
So do you think that's where your personality is very helpful for the team, in that sense?
Like all the things we just discussed?
I think on average, if we talk about the communication levels and energy levels, I'm the most stable one.
But on the other hand, I have less ups, but less downs, you know?
So I'm like more of an average at this point.
So when they have these games that I can notice that no one else kind of talking, I can kind of force them talking.
So, if I see that my teammates don't talk, I can talk more.
So, it will force them to communicate with me at some point.
So, yeah, it can be helpful.
XiongTek's giving a lot of information in that interview there,
but I gotta be real.
If the bounty bonanza wheel can't get Brutus' smile,
nothing out that will, okay?
It is the pinnacle of achievement when you're able to hit...
Enjoy!
Yeah, exactly.
You can feel some emotions, but you can choose whether or not to show them and you chose not to show them at the bonanza
That's I think might be his default choice there
But he does talk about what he's giving a lot to the team and of course we get to see that
Time and time again just how he is stepping up for spirit here
But now my question does it pertain to nuke are we going to be seeing more coming out of spirit?
Like we were able to see they're on ancient or is this a map where we're actually wondering maybe mouse might have that advantage
I'm happy with what I see from Maus most of the time on the CT side, the T side
I think they have their struggles
They've changed sphinx to lobby where I think he's a lot more effective than he was is kind of the more Romer player
But you have a really big struggle session from Torgie on this map
He's actually
Incredible once you get the AWP in his hands on the CT side T side. He's not that great with the rifle typically
I'd like to see how he performs now when he's having such a good tournament
But in general usually it's one where Torgie struggles and Maus can have their problems
another concern for me is that Mao's their whole T side is usually based off
of great trading it's what works for them on dust a mirage as we've already
seen clearly it wasn't working in their favor for ancient their second worst
trading map on T side is nuke so that's gonna lead to even more difficulties
when individuals aren't just able to find those opening kills however the
style that Mao's like to play is actually pretty tricky to follow a 3d max
that's had a hard time always finding out where exertion snuck off to get down the vents.
And the thing is that mouse will use sometimes four smokes outside just to veil what it is
that they're trying to accomplish, whether they're trying to wrap in the hell or make
it down secret. So spirit, they're just going to have to make sure that they stay aggressive,
that they actually are keeping some info because if you're flying blind against mouse, they're
just going to convert.
I'm hoping that we get a similar sort of display when we did see mouse going up against 3D Max
on Nuke, but we've got the triple overtime, so much joy.
We had a, you know, Tosey essentially won V4 sort of a clutch up for himself
when he's team in a winning position.
That's the mouse that I'm hoping shows up today.
I'm hoping Spirit hitting that sort of level as well.
I don't think my heart could take that.
Okay.
I don't think my heart could take that in the grand final of Spirit against Mouse.
I'm really excited to see what Mouse has changed up from then.
I think they had some mistakes in that game that they could absolutely remedy.
And this is, I want to mention, I've harped on PR for some of his positions.
I think this is the one where he shows the most promise ramp.
He's very tough to deal with and Spirit often do attack ramp on their T sides.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's also a switching to the CT side.
Kind of an objective for me is for mouse to probably get five.
I actually like their CT side quite a bit.
So as long as they just maybe get it close at halftime,
they should feel pretty comfortable.
I also think that the A defense between Xelix and Xershin can be pretty strong, too.
I think that they've actually just really locked down a lot of spots.
Actually, Spinks with him on that A site.
But either way, the way that Xelix has actually handled Executes
has been a little bit impressive for me for a guy that just kind of gets slotted in against tier one teams.
So many flashes in his face.
He's been doing a really serviceable job dodging one, then getting one kill himself, staying alive.
So he's the guy to watch out for for me, too.
You say close in the first half. What's what's putting you in a position of comfort though to be able to see it transition into a map when for mouse or vice versa for spirit?
Mouse before have created game plans that have made Donk look silly. Okay, that has happened on nuke. So I fully trust Cyclone to be able to at least stump Donk a couple of these times because as Donk warms up into the series, you don't want him to take 50 50
Fairfights on the CT side. It's going to be very tough to shut down, but on the T side
This is one of the few maps where you can see don't go cold without having a bad individual game
But rather by game plans as you're saying from the likes of Cyclone
Mouse called off a little bit towards the end of ancient there
They've had time to reset spirit firing out for themselves
Which makes a clash of the Titans here happen on nuke for map 4 of our grand final a
Clash of the Titans only made possible by the fact that the second Titan
has actually stepped into the server.
We've now got Donk playing well off of Ancient.
The polymarket prediction remains mouse favored,
but slightly.
Obviously a little bounce back in this series could be good,
but I like that the analysts gave credit
to the brains of the operation on mouse
and the possibility, you know,
painting this picture of maybe the game plan
shutting down Donk in map four.
We've officially gotten deep into this best of five.
I would also like to say this legitimizes
the win more for mouse.
If it had ended back on Ancient.
I like that. I think we'd have to say men spirit just were not good at this event
It's not good in this final if they go ahead and win
They're the right guy at the top of the board
They pick up a comeback victory as well. And so even though there's a bit more pressure on mouths
I think there's more at stake
in making this wind feel
Kind of as big as it should because this is like the team that they always lose to the team that they can't even get maps against
But make no mistake Nuka's up for grabs
We're all hoping for cash now at this point doesn't waterfall
Donk with the first chance two players in front of that dual PR nice little crouch approach. Yeah monster
Monster stuff out of PR again stays mobile to get first blood in this pistol
Why does he know he's going to come back?
Oh my goodness, just does.
My word, what a read from Zershin.
A couple of beautiful taps out of Maus for the 5v3,
Shiro's Beretta's still a part of this A defense.
Very much aware that Heaven is going to get wrapped
and that this A site could be threatened from above.
So they go for the hot push, the second player inside of Lobby now,
trying to clear out one side of this, so that they can turn back.
Shiro confirms a bunch of numbers.
Two from me, at least two out from Heaven, and he is only able to cut one player down.
Certainly not ideal for those Berettas, as Sontex tries to creep up vents,
he'll make some noise to let them know, and that is still bomb planted, no challenge, back sight.
Magix also reveals himself without one USPS tap, so there's...
Sontex could have got out of the vent, could have.
Kind of a few times, and...
Goes for the long journey.
Oh, not bad at all, but unfortunately here, it is Zontick suddenly alone in a 1v3, no kit for the play, and he took that long road to wrap back around secret.
Now, the fact that one player is along this wall could have just given him an easy kill right there, very ready to swing with Zellex,
and we get Maus with a nice slow approach, an eventual squeeze, and another pistol victory.
And we'd love to know, is this my suspicion based on all the pistols we've seen, I think
Doc is actually struggling on pistols.
He was kind of like number one in all stats at some point, but I feel like he's been
countered on these pistols a lot and faced with an opening duel, kind of a duel that
he'd normally win.
I don't have the numbers to back it up.
I've seen a lot.
I've seen a lot of my own eyes.
The old eye test.
i was there
i was i'm a little urges
please let the numbers be on my side for this one i think that's been a reason
it's okay
we're casters not analysts we speak from the heart
So these SMGs out there on the field, collecting themselves in ramp, there's a lot of bodies
for Spirit in ramp if they want to tiptoe down towards B.
But first, Zershin, gonna give a bit of a test outside.
There's no poke from main, there's no defender except for Shiro here, you've at least gotten
the scout away from that ramp room and potential rotate lower.
This MP9 from Zontics is in front of Magix and they both go down empty-handed.
Donk's Desert Eagle versus a sea of opponents here.
And he has slipped the net, so he executes the bomb planter.
Still plenty of time to pick that bomb back up, but he'll find damage on Torgie as well.
But again, replaced by the second player, Baxi, tough ass of what's left of Spirit.
They'll have to step away from this.
Scout will be valuable in any round in the future.
I really want cash now do you now that we've broken the barrier it's not a sweep one way
or the other for spirit and all their best to five grand finals I don't think Maus want
to get there though I don't know there was that pregame interview with PR kind of brought
up because five minutes like it'll yeah and like the hesitation in that it'll be interesting
20 days of practice to get integrated to every map of the pool and then cash is the brand new map for everybody. Yeah
It'll be
Interesting honestly though like he should be great on a map like cash. It's an aim-focused map. He's like a he's a beast on some of these
Angle I can't help but think back to mouse versus
High quality at the Lisbon the Lisbon open event where at the time mouse were actually contending for a trophy
But it was the first time train was in the pool and so Brolin
I remember we get to the fifth map of that series and he goes, it's my fault. I wasn't ready for this map
What a deep cut. What a robbery this could be if we get to another new map and mouse somehow finally fall apart
Yeah, you heard him on the desk. It's the simplest map. It's the simplest map. Train is literally the hardest. So that's fair. Just use nades
Explore them in the smokes
Yeah, we'll have to see what CS2 does to cash with this book, you know
What what kind of creativity can be brought to it, but it's it is really the simplest map
I'm just grateful that it's the same cache
So we actually to see the CS go to CS to comparison with train coming back in so different
It didn't feel like the return of train. It felt like something new
So all remains salty for the time being
We hit a minute mark
We've had utility to slow down mouse's approach in this round. It is still just four pistols for spirit
The hesitation towards the ramp originally two desert Eagle shots that just don't find their marks don't goes back in and will kill PR
Made set down
Good value out of that frag lots of bodies dropping low haters donks gonna be quick to make sure that they have all gone down this ramp
He'll show no hesitation and they don't control that gun. You just gave don't an AK
They're everywhere.
And another moment where he's got Kevlar.
He was the one guy to do this.
Pied down low.
Zellex in 11, and they pull that off.
That's incredible out of spirit, man.
Those are the rotations that you want to see from this team.
They actually played active.
So active, and all it took was one kill,
and then all the rotations, mouths fully surrounded.
And no hesitation out of Donk.
The D kill into clearing that whole ramp.
You know, he doesn't let them kind of get down into the B site.
Those are the teammate right behind him, too.
Sprints to the AK, gets back in with it, and she rode the other one with that scout.
That's an awesome way for Spirit to find their first CT round win.
Well, awesome if you ask anybody other than Maus.
It's a massive steal.
Put them in a limited space, we've got low utility and a tech nine on Zershin.
It's a steal, but it's not lucky.
I feel I like that there's no real massive mistake there for Maus.
They just got, you know, digged and then it was just pure action out of Spirit.
Pure speed as well. I like no hesitation to take over the top of ramp.
You heard all four players jump over that railing?
And they kind of pay the price for not keeping one player to watch for that...
Hell wrap.
Now it's going to be another test towards the ramp room, and Shiro...
Loomed it, but still delivers the first.
Manifact is earned for spirit. Donk's going to go down empty-handed thanks to Zellex.
A duel picked up outside. This returns Shiro to the action in ramp room.
Quick plush here from Taneer to catch Zelex entirely unprepared that oper now in an awkward spot as sphinx takes the head off
We go back even 3v3 that totally changes it
I mean well the thing is it looks like miles are not exactly ready to attack they could have dropped down the
Ramp, but Taneer still alive. They've got one in lower all ready
Late squeaky at 30 seconds. It's a classic maneuver, but they're coming out of hunt at the same time
It's Taneer downstairs and this hut arrival for Magix.
He's alone for the moment.
Oh, he gets the dink on Torji.
Oh boy.
But a kill picked up by Maus, puts that bomb down with a man advantage.
Be it slim, can Taneer really get out through this van?
Tough ask of him looking to link up with Zontix,
who doesn't push through main because of the smoke.
He'll wrap around Heaven instead.
This is going to buy time for Maus.
He has a flash.
He can throw over top of Squeaky.
That's the only way you can really do this with utility.
There'll be a bit of a warning, obviously, but it's Torsche low HP straight down beneath this.
Oh, but he still delivers the headshot.
And that means Tenir is not even given a chance at the retake.
Two key kills there from Torsche to shut this round down.
And the even bigger one maybe from Spinks taking out Shiro.
If Shiro stays alive, he has the op.
They can't even settle down inside of the ramp.
Magic will probably get support towards A.
Once they know that lower wasn't an option, but because of this kill, that's an arrow to Nero.
And to Nero, make that rotation down there. Robert to Nero.
Mamma Mia!
I can't hold the ramp, huh?
So, I count down.
Gorlami.
Oh boy.
Tough place for Spirit suddenly.
You don't want to get economically reset this early on a CT side of Nuke.
Well, because they won't saving, they get another buy, otherwise they wouldn't have one.
Yeah, they'd be in that spot already.
Magics can make do with the MP9, no doubt.
However this map goes just don't let it to beat the dud shots, you know, I don't want to see small flicks getting this and bad sprays
That's just not the one way you want to go out again. It'd be such a legitimate victory for mouse
To take down a team like this and a best of five
Everyone's back on land
But only if they play well
Cold starts. Donk is 5-7 in pistol rounds today.
Oh, God, the numbers of his teammates even worse.
Damn, you had to throw them in there?
Yeah, I mean, sometimes feed Tramp Sassy.
But it's fair. Yeah, the Stafford to near earlier was that he's more consistent than
magics and zontics with above 1.0 ratings.
Time frame was like the last three months,
but it's just that you see to near sometimes he's having takeover mass.
He's finally starting to get really comfortable.
It felt like within this team after getting shuffle around for a lot of spots,
but he's still very consistent.
There's a lot of smokes outside, but really no action around it.
If you spams here, so be it.
Zontics open floor loses the fight and no assistance
this Shiro's a little further back.
He tries to get an angle, but it's already two players
to drop quickly downstairs.
That's the bomb though.
Torsi got tagged down to eight health
and he's still locked into this duel.
Finally dips as Donk sits on single door.
They may have taken over control,
but the secret approach is gonna get cut off with damage.
Still Zershin wins these fights just barely.
Donk goes down, the vent player clip,
only for the five damage.
Magics will be fine.
Retake on, he's trying to Q up,
Push it forward to PR.
It's a guillotine from the AK.
Two headshots collected at a 1v4 from Shiro.
Now found out to be upstairs.
Dude, any close.
They could have lost a lot of these fights,
and this round could have been a flop.
Oh, totally.
Even up to the point of a two-near-second kill,
there's a chance for Spirit to technically try to go for this.
But with that 2k, there's obviously no chance.
So if someone was asked like, do you feel that, and I think Mali asked him, do you feel like this is the team that has some inner reason to have the most firepower in?
There's always going to be an element to this where you're sitting with your new teammates, you're talking about your new squad, the answer is yes, every time.
But definitely an argument could be made.
I mean especially if you're almost like this out of PR.
Rampure. This is the first door by play.
Ooh, it's starting to feel like it's coming apart, because this is the tough earned moment
that Spirit actually go invest heavy on dog.
No. Excuse me, that's just the save AK given to him.
Makes sense.
Pass it over. Let him be the hero, but he hasn't been in hero mode today.
Throw the molly down to make sure there's no quick rotation that can be taken place, but they still come down.
Zershin's already made it out of the vents.
But actually, we're starting to lean back upstairs, so sometimes you go for the vent drop just to pull some CTs down and make it into a fake.
Oh, crazy timing for the wall smokes. No way. Spirit are gonna be ready for that.
5-7 sent downstairs to the door swinging wide.
Shiro will win the fight over the Mach 10, but careful, because that AK is here.
Shiro is trying to set it up. Donk gets the double.
Now it's man advantage. You catch that one with a NATO.
One saved gun.
Bomb sits in front of him. Spinks a late arrival.
This was meant to be the open road for Maus's T-side.
Instead, Spirit will bear their teeth.
Show fights.
I love that camera angle, just showing that those were AKs trying to exit,
and Donk shuts them down.
Just uses Shiro as bait. He gets that first kill.
Torn limb from limb
That's the value of the save
The second round they win it's off of the save again trying to buy themselves a tempo
And with three AKs makes the next buy even cheaper
Not too late to bring the half back what a moment for dog man that leaves
Mountain is such a stressful spot as well. There's gonna be pistols on the field in this next one
Donk trying to replicate his impact from ancient into nuke
Finally back
Donk broke his streak of five straight negative KD maps on ancient longest streak of his career moving CS go
Oh
Jesus bounty has been an anomaly
For the best rifleman in the world, maybe it won't be a second or a 42nd best tournament in his career.
Nate is negligible, but here comes hero on an AK, burned back from the hell.
Zontics is under a lot of pressure, will deliver a kill and some damage to Boop.
There's no other rotation downstairs, so this timing here for Maus is solid.
I feel like he full commits here, but he actually had a better chance of having his teammates rotate over
if he played from the ramp and had them fighting with him for a bit.
Magics is stomping.
This is going to be Zelez to try to jump from with the Tech 9, but the limited weapon here
for Maus starts to give an advantage back over the Spirit.
Torzi signing up for an AK dual towards what is three ramp retakers, and he's going to
at least kill Donk.
That's a big scalp to take in this moment.
Donk has been fueling these retakes, fueling this CT side fighting on.
Another attempt to go clear single-thor, very late from Zershin.
I'm still never going down. Remember that.
You've got CTs in the midst of what felt like a retake.
Shiro goes wide, gets denied, and Maus will win their clip.
Damn, they hold all that ground.
They just wait.
All the duels keep coming to them.
They knew the house spirit were going to try to play.
It didn't rush the situation.
Thought they might regret that.
And Torzzy, even though it's only one kill,
it's a very, very important one.
Oh, a second.
Woo!
Yes!
Nice!
Nice!
Nice!
Nice!
Nice!
Nice!
The most I've had to do was the hard way.
The two-round spirit won it while saving, but in the follow-up last time they also won
again.
Now they'll have to try to do it again here to spirit.
So mark sort of their last chance to actually have a decent CT side
Give me that one time. Oh wow
Wow a lot of fantastic rifle highlights from Torsey today out of my man
He was actually a monster versus 3d max on nuke as well
It's kind of just been a monster all bounty
Lovely to see him hitting this level at the start of a season
Just mouse in general that's the story in all the shortcomings at the first event of this season
Not even getting through the opening round, Falcons and Vitality, Maus with a new roster
have improved outing after outing.
And even our loudest criticisms in that Dust2B synergy, they worked on that for today's best
of five Grand Finals.
Three weeks this team has had to practice, it looks like he's gonna walk into this, and
they've got spirit by the scruff of the neck.
It's gonna deliver the first blood.
They're gonna walk three players towards this ramp.
Zontik's to be tested.
We've seen him stick around at times.
He's committing, but to a fault.
Spinks has gotten far out.
Shiro will fight PR, but that close push in to back turn in good cover.
But Zontik still gets away with the kill a moment sooner.
That's a great rotation from Dog.
I wonder if this is hurt earlier.
Molly, that's gonna disrupt him versus NY.
He'll of course deliver the headshot and the trade, or rather follow up on the Zellex.
So, Tonk does his job, they survive with majority, a single point of health, all Tonk needs for that last kill.
Certainly with a soft plant with that frag, doesn't happen.
And because Nels, they kind of made their bed here.
They gave Spirit a second chance in both of these rounds that they think that, but now they're the ones who have to save.
It really can make this interesting.
mama mia
welcome to api arra pizzeria
best pizza in all the malta
it's probably really offensive but it does kinda sound like that
italian pizza maker
meda with love
Where are you gonna put this bomb?
You know, my humble advice, if you're gonna carry a bomb at any point in your life, spin it on your finger.
I would advise not to.
I'd also advise me not carrying bombs, but...
You can't stop the youth.
PR, gonna try to move that down to the plant. Hey, they love the money.
But it's gonna be on full display.
Is there a chance they win this now?
They should never put the Glock on another!
Settle down!
Spirit, it's costly.
And that AWP will not be retrieved as it somehow gets onto the other side of that yellow whatever.
Good thing Shiro got all the kills he did.
Freaking sketchy, man.
It's all in the spin.
So Spirit, close the gap.
They was actually next to it, whatever it meant to hit the ceiling like that, but it
was perfect.
Well these Zellix had a position to really play from, you're up in the rafters with
an AWP fully exposed.
Certainly made spirit sweat, I'll tell you that much, and also really makes them reinvest.
a chance, Maus can break down the doors. We haven't seen them go for this A attack
in some time, so looking to transition back to it with the execute. You've got
Sphinx out squeaky already, rock eight awkward. Magics is SMG's the limitation.
Shiro from up above gets the trade back, but it does cost them their player insight.
Oh, sure. And the trades are fantastic here from Maus. They make the difference.
2v1 earned by a headstrong attack into that upper hit. Damn, so watching that from
Shiro's POV gets another multi-kill, but I mean, Zontik's gonna win, gonna have to win one of these retakes eventually.
And you know he plays them slow.
Spinks is the one member to post a multi-kill this round.
There are any kits for you out of kits over here.
He gets docked to start. Zontik's gonna be a long journey to go grab that kit.
If you're playing versus Zontik's, just talk. You know, like, he will work it very slowly.
He's got it, but smoke doesn't actually cover the bomb.
This is awkward in the middle of it now, but he still tracks down Zershin needs that kid hasn't picked it up
Ten second defuse and he's missed it even with these kills nothing
He can do about it if the kid was a little closer
Maybe because low burn means this is
Mouses six T side win and that's all that matters to them
At this point in the half. Yeah, yeah
After that man, it's possible mission
This one's not done. I think spirit actually no
Because of how expensive it was
It's right there for the taking yeah
Had a genuine chance of just grabbing it yep
Kind of got like lost in that smoke though got weird communications hard in that spot
So cash limited spirit
at best, tying this half, but they'd have to do it with less in this one.
Makes sense to go for it right now. With those five deaths,
Azontics will peel back.
Just wants to get out of here, dropping utility, putting the best weapon they have on the line,
but Spinks is swift.
Crack of the whip, quick headshot.
Op is dead, they'll put that in Torji's hand, so even an upgrade here for Maus off of the opening kill.
I think Maus just want to let him sweat a little bit.
He's got ramp control extremely early.
They're also holding for flanks on top of T-Roof.
Lose lobby control, but that doesn't fluster mouse by the looks of things.
Because they've still got one.
Back in lobby to draw everybody back.
It is a safe venture.
With this SMG up close like this. He's on the fallback
Peels away from hut and doing so opens the door for this mouse push through trying to tether off the 5-7 on squeaky side
Obviously donk would like to get into the mix, but he's still back towards hell
No one's watching heaven. Yeah, just straight walk out made easy
Donk a little
Dispatched from the action
Come through and deny the bomb plant but Zelex has got the cover
And this one's made easy by Maus.
They'll lose that one player in PR to the lobby push
and then go right back to that death
and show no hesitation.
Look at Zellix go on this Grand Finals.
Looking like a very underrated aspect of this lineup.
It's been really impressive to watch him grow
individually in this project
when at a time we were talking about
how PR's inclusion made chemistry.
Look a little awkward. We weren't sure how long it would take. Sometimes, you know, the not newest, but second newest piece also struggles in the addition of a new player. That has not been the case for Zellex.
Anything. He's brought consistency in the tape to the table at a time that needed it.
They need another big round from Shiro to save this half, but that AWP got fully countered
after they took ramp control.
Again, that's just been a focus of this T-Side at a mouse.
T-Side that's looking to end on a high note, the scrappy buy coming out of Spirit.
It's all that they can muster.
Scout, MP9, bare bones utility.
a lot of frag grenades. Let's see if they can get value out of that.
The Donk has returned to looking human. Eight kills on a CT side.
The ability to announce the intentions, the spreads, wow they totally zoned Donk into
the AK spam, back into the planes, he's the first to fall in the final round of the defensive
half from Spirit.
And they really want to get value from these fights outside, but PR is quick to the trigger.
And the scout hasn't had a target to shoot at just yet, and that'll remain the same with
a smoke in front of them now.
Teneir from inside main, has been waiting forever for a duel.
Just wants them to make the mistake, he's got a teammate to play off of in magics with
the 5-7.
Sure enough, they'll run that off through.
Jiro got his no way!
The 5-7 triple for the road!
More kills in this one round from Magix than the entire half combined.
Okay.
Here on the Sundrench streets of Mirage,
In the garage we spot some of nature's most fascinating creatures, counter-strike players
in their natural habitat.
Despite the plenipal environments these fellows could inhabit, they seem to always swarm towards
the comfort and safety of this shining paradise.
As the sun rises over the stone architecture, in typical fashion we see this species squabble
over their preferred position.
Let us discover where they shall end up.
Firstly, we have the so-called A anchor.
This fellow is often seen fighting for his life without a lick of support.
The window player.
An arrogant and egotistical creature, they can often be seen in the pregame chat claiming
their position in the blink of an eye.
Not all are so luckiest to get their desired position.
The B anchor, often times the runts of the litter, designated to hold this empty site
and ward off predators.
Forced to survive on scraps, he can often be found at the bottom of the scoreboard.
Here we see the signature characteristic of this off-forgotten fellow, a key adaptation
over millennia.
This creature's legs propel them tirelessly and repeatedly to spot any potential foe.
As this defensive tribe scramble to defend their territory, they realize they are not
alone.
garage can hold up to as many as 9 foes at a single time.
As we move across its deserted expanse, we arrive at another group of remarkable characters.
However, these bloodthirsty devils do not look as amicable as our aforementioned defenders,
their eyes locked on the objective.
These players scurry from their spawn with the exception of one.
Without moving a muscle, we observe one of the players launching a grey metallic canister
Skyward. The desired outcome seems not to have been achieved. A regrettable mistake. With
the new weapon acquired, our CT favors a more aggressive approach. Meanwhile, with the anticipation
in the air, a coordinated attack is incoming. A breakneck flurry of utility flies overhead
attempting to disrupt the defenders. The stakes could not be higher. And with nothing he can
can do. The anchor is flash banged like a deer in headlights. He decides his best bet
is to retreat. No matter how much he cries out for help, support is nowhere to be found.
However, the restless hunter has found its prey. It's one shot, one kill, such as the
life of the opera, precise and deadly.
No doubt Mao's content with the way the first 12 rounds went down a seven round T side here
on nuke and barring ancient.
It has not been a formula for spirit that looks like you can believe in an uphill battle
from here on out if spirit have anything left to say in this best of five grand finals.
Here comes the ultimate test for team spirit.
They have T side and a comeback to prove that they can take this to a fifth.
Otherwise, there's not going to be much to say for them in this grand finals.
Able to cross the secret, but it gets spotted.
Ooh, that'll help. Two headshots come out from Spirit.
In an opening, 5v3 for this pistol. Could PR possibly shut it down?
No, labored effort gets his damage in, but all five members of Spirit still stand.
Zershin, only the one. And so, Zellex, he's going to have to catch this free kill in Lobby, which could help.
But you still have a huge ask ahead of you and to near here's him running towards the ramp
This is interesting. Magic's 3k into 2k
Critical 2k at that
Here's gonna hunt you down close that gap instantly a one-round game made possible by the pistol
Yeah, this is where you rub your hands together now
You can have the most exciting finish possible spirit have really given themselves a chance and spirit have a great track record at this event in
converting these pistols. One time they make that mistake so far this grand finals, but
otherwise very clean conversion rate. And they may not want it.
Scout, quick to reveal itself outside.
and the cross will meet no resistance.
They kind of trip over on the shoelaces in some of these spots.
There's gonna be a lot of follow through.
Hang on! Awkward jump there for Zershin.
They're gonna get that bomb back.
advantage into their hands and they'll extend it. Good on shiro.
Matt 10 just chews through that bomb site and it'll just be that one casualty
for Teneir to have to stomach as Spirit tie this game at seven rounds apiece.
They kind of get stuck and set up sometimes and they're missing some of the follow-through,
just simply getting two players out to trade, three players out in a row and if they lose a
kill they can get jumbled up. Spirit there, they can make a mistake of leaving the bomb. I mean,
it doesn't matter right now, but if any of the kills have gone back and forth, it totally
really ruins your structure. If someone has to now leave, everybody gets distracted. Those
are the things that need to be neat and tidy. Last round the force by this time was saved.
They do still come into this with 3-5-7s and a deeg. I'm not saying the odds are anywhere
close to Mavs' favor.
They could make it interesting.
Really, just hoping to make it expensive.
It's honestly like, you know, you've just got through the armor.
Think yourself a favorite don't overthink this spot.
Mmm, such a big advantage the players you have.
You know, that sort of energy.
Nothing like just the right amount of utility here, like I see ramp is totally open.
Magics is here calling rotations.
Just a USP though, so what the hell do you expect Torsche to do about it?
all over the site to guarantee the mop-line goes down smooth.
Now's you're gonna have to hope that that first gun round on the other side of this one
can stop Spirit's momentum because Spirit with momentum
is a very scary thing.
We haven't had the scariest version of Spirit today
in this Grand Finals,
But after that ancient showing, you are allowing them to grow in confidence, you're giving
Donk more and more runway to turn it up for this game.
On the exit, no real price tags added to the tally.
Teneir can still dive potentially to the lobby player, so it's all about Zershin and
what he can rack up.
That's your teammate, and he's down.
This is Dunn's spirit. 8-7 lead for spirit. Lots of guns in hand.
We'll see if it matters. It's the early makings of a T-side.
Just the jump start, the engine, and now we're going to see about mouse, because you know, it's a little bit at the end of ancient.
They kind of just kept letting them go. I mean, they had nine rounds, they had a big lead.
And it kind of just vanished.
Didn't think too much about it being up two maps.
Having so many good rounds in there to make that lead happen in the first place.
And now let's come into this one with no kits.
And they got half armor.
Well, we're talking two Galils and Mach 10 here.
I can absolutely make a difference.
They're very greedy about getting good guns. Sacked a lot of other things.
Now they're down to very little utility.
Nades fly through, Zontics can't see Jack.
But Spinks, blind, is covered off by Zellex. Big coverage.
from the back of that bomb site to keep all five players on mouse up PR trying to just slip in the back site
ankle delivers the double kill
drops the bomb and suddenly puts what's left of spirit in a tight squeeze two versus five
They find their first and as they shuffle downstairs with 35 to the clock. This is a very separated team spirit
Magix remains outside
So quite a risky buy here for mouse, but it looks like they were correct about everything they have all the good guns
That helped them get their multi-kills looks like they might win this one with four up
As they're setting up that upper it's yet upper would have actually been a bad spot to go
They sacked a player to try to get into secret but those are already wary about the thought that it might be a fake
Totally denied entry.
Big investment out of spirit to be expected.
Mac 10 at the helm towards the ramp room and what's that ramp defense look like? It is PR
Smoke in front of him frag on his belt aka in hand. It's all eyes on PR, but him on ramp
He's put up some very very good holds utility makes it uncomfortably stuck
It's fine. You regain vision and it's not for you to tether off of but towards you doesn't go back in for the second shot
Zelex will just crack the dial kills dog again inside in the lobby and will send spirit into a tailspin downstairs
where Maus has comfortably rotated already,
but Spinks gets whittled down to a quarter health.
Zontics on the brink of finding that duel,
although in front of the window
is just simply Zershin's victory.
And no chance for Zontics.
It's majority alive out of Maus.
It's a bottomed out economy,
and it's a chance to sprint to this trophy.
Yeah, there was two full buys there for Spirit.
They both failed.
Maus coming up huge on trades, opening kills.
Very good rotations.
The R does just enough here with Thor's he getting there in time and his kills for free
Zelex the only CT that has to take a fight alone and it's on his terms
Yeah, he's won quite a few duels versus dogs actually surprising about
Cohesion on mouse's camp right now is stellar
And this is spirits genuinely final time out feels like they don't have the firepower to keep up
with Maus right now, which is absolutely insane thing to say.
I think what helps is any other point in history
where you could have said that.
Well, what certainly helps is that you're
dealing with all of Maus' firepower.
Look at the kill differential here.
From 13 to 11, all 10, all five players.
And it's kind of felt like that all best of five long.
Yeah.
If you're already lacking in firepower,
and pistols sure as hell won't help in this one.
Spirit trying to get back to the guns,
but it's gonna cost them rounds unless they have
something up their sleeve.
Very light on the utility here.
Single smoke, a second death for magics.
Okay, there's a cache of them.
Single smoke turns into three.
They try to play behind that wall,
but it gets spotted by this garage position.
But it's not a casualty yet for a spirit to have to stomach.
So they do get dangerously close to these smokes.
Just barely missed that gap, Zershin's going to hear this.
Teneir's pushed through, he's waiting for this duel, oh and he lands the headshot.
Teneir surrounded so can't get more value out of that.
Responded go for that plant great distraction to put that bomb down on be inside of hot
They win another Zontics has found his this was meant to be a smooth sailing moment for mouse
And instead they have a difficult question
Do they even want to chance this retake now they're gonna come find Zontics?
That's that kind of the first step that those on ticks needs to well he could be dropping on the bed
They're saving yeah, I don't even know if they're all it's sense to try it
What a steal on other one three rounds in this game spirit have won while saving
A sequence of errors that make mouse's jobs so much harder than they have to be here on
Nuke.
They will not give up the guns they decided to save, but they do let spirit tie this
game at nine rounds.
They're literally making this as hard as possible.
The most free round so far for mouse, they've given them up.
I mean Tenir knew this fight was coming his way, sat here patiently waiting for it, delivers his.
Top ground losses to Stunik, but at least Malice can just try to bounce right back into it.
Full guns, full nades, everything they need.
Their opponent though, obviously, just a kickstart to the economy.
That's going to make the rest of this half all that much harder.
Huge sea of utile, chucked out through that squeaky door.
And now the executes with the Molly interrupted by a smokey squeaky again.
This is Spinks that try to press up against his opposition.
He's going to go for this.
He's trying to make a move happen and he's going to find that perfect timing.
What a great call out.
Right before they're able to walk into the trophy room, it is Spinks for the 5v4.
As this walk takes place outside, they do it without Taneer.
They don't know what's going on inside the lobby.
Look at a swing heavy outside, scoresy repositions.
They don't pop open the smoke.
They don't go for the spam.
Yeah.
Nothing they can do to really interrupt this other than just dump ammo, and they decide
not to, so it's spirit with the silent three-player secret cross.
And they're playing that big garage, so the rotations are a little bit hampered here,
even though they have five players.
There's nobody downstairs.
Yeah, doubled up on ramp, so they have a chance to get down there if they want to, but to
To be honest, they just kind of look frozen in place.
There's no one here inside of the vent.
No warning system for Maus.
Are they really going to allow Spirit to simply take lower?
This swing is going to confirm it.
They put a smoke on Squeaky to try to maybe get
Spinks into play.
This is going to remove Zontics for the time being.
Got to be weird communication.
Look how many maids they hold on to.
Let's see if that matters.
Heavy towards the wrap room.
three players to gear up for this retake.
The T's, they would love a smoke to try to block off
one of these avenues of the retake,
but Shiro, burning down, will still kill Torgie.
We've got one back, two back now.
Spinks gets the lobby, Lurker, dead, Doc's got nothing.
Magix, it's all on him.
He's got two more players to kill,
and look at the health, they are that close.
But it is Zershin to come up big
with a triple kill moment.
Oh, that would have been easy for Magix
if he got that first frag.
Both players one bullet away from death.
That one, such a razor's edge.
Either way, so low health for both teams.
And it starts with this push from Spinks.
But I like the way you described it.
It felt like Maus was frozen.
Yeah, they were not responding to the smoke
they saw on the outside cross.
Maybe off the 5v4, they thought we
know we'll be able to rethink if they come up,
or we have them for sure.
That's a crazy win for Maus.
I mean win on an eco as much as you want but only one of those rounds there's three
rounds that they won while saving and we'll find out about this one but in the follow-up
Spirit only won once on their second buy this one's the weakest of all
ball. She can't be afraid of winning these rounds. You know it's a recent wound with
as many times as it's happened in this map. The guns like these still allow spirit to
to prevail.
That was a very close down to bringing this home.
He's going headhunting outside. He knows his potential victims right there for the taking,
and he will track Zershin down. He's having players, Wills and Low, 7 HPs, all of it's
left for Doc, and we've got this main player who's just not making a move. Tucked into
the corner, remains Spinks. There's been so much noise. See if they come clear of this.
Tanir's gonna take his time. Heaven player's not ready. Oh, nope, just turned back, caught
with the Nade. Spinks finishes off when he's started towards Donk. Magix has gotten out
through the hut. He sees the barrel towards Nade. Zelex's position catches him off. And
now it's both these two teams remaining. No! Torji jumping Glockshot. But he's going
to slow the round down. This is Shiro with a bomb and a health advantage 1v1.
It has to be the clutch.
What's the play, Torji? A lot of grenades. Shiro's got the time.
That won't end. She won't be enough.
No fake and Torsey doesn't throw utility.
So the potential for him to have repositioned is real and Shiro knows it, but he still seems
worried about heaven.
Goes to lock into the lobby instead.
This is Torsey already with a kit.
It's Torsey with a smoke as well.
He's got a plan.
He has that smoke.
He knows that Shiro's going to move with that much space.
It's information offered over.
He is sitting on top of the hut.
That door closed.
Flash bang not thrown.
Torgie still hanging onto that smoke,
he's gonna drop it on the bomb,
flash out from Shiro to confirm his position.
Torgie fake defuse, tries to spam through it,
Nate to expose him, and Torgie's out of here.
Never given a chance.
Shiro simply dodges the duel,
and that is gonna clean both players out of the round.
By God, we are tied again.
Yes, and off the clutch that goes, Spirit's way.
Torgie look like you've moving really confident,
but as soon as he gave Shiro all that space,
I feel like, I actually didn't know how to deal with that situation.
I'm not even sure we got off of after he did his first map.
And so we have a map now where it's Shiro top of the board here for Spirit.
He had a great first half.
I know.
He's still so...
Yeah, it's like his own smoke and he's like shooting it.
What's crazy is the flash comes out from Squeaky and he's still watching the hot smoke.
Another JR Smith moment.
There's a couple of weird ones, right?
his headphones are on backwards. Man, I hope not. At this point, he should be getting
used to it. But, man, props to Taneer to be able to find that gap, that space to close
the distance into heaven. Yeah, he probably won it with that play. Spirit keep this within
the realm of possibility. This isn't Spirit just banking on Donk. It's Shiro who again
in a critical moment while Spirit face elimination is getting his impact, winning his clutches
and remaining at the top of the scoreboard for Spirit.
This one goes to Money Mouse. Did you give up too many easy rounds this game? It's going
to be the question this is the first time we've had a player down towards
secret and it almost kills doc straight up and Kenny afforded to be on the
fallback as they try to chase him downstairs three players coming great
pre-fire finish off doc can spirit do it without him space from the vent plate
gets the headshot it is to near again in these late moments finding his chance to
strike, very passive garage angle and with three players making it downstairs, why would
magics ever consider that Zershin was still back there?
Yeah, just never moving from that spot. Even after hearing everybody run down secret after
PR.
But with that passive hold, meant a gap towards the ramp room that Zontix slips through.
This is where the hard reads and the creativity come out. Zontix is getting flanked slowly
whether he realizes it or not.
Oh, Zellex kills him from the site. Contact down towards secret, but he doesn't win the
duel.
to win this round. 20 seconds as he scrambles back down towards the B site.
We've already got Torsi here playing in the cover of the ramp doors. Yeah, I mean
Maybe he sneaks away across the site. I would have to get lucky to do so. Not much time remaining. Torsi just hit this.
And he dies. 11th secure to the mouse. Money is gone here for Spirit.
It was both teams up against the economy playing for this 11th.
That's bone dry in the pocket books.
That's Spirit who came into that round with two Mac 10s after the shiro clutch because he even died
First time we get a different look with that challenge up through secret PR Pete's secret with an MP9
and uh, don't do the kill him on the first link
Didn't kill him on a second chance either
full investment here for spirit to defend against championship point
got a rifle in sight but also where they've done some of their best work
He crushed that with one hand.
That was no sweat out of Spinks.
18 frags.
a fantastic final.
In a map where there have been so many rounds
that Spirit are able to pick up with pistols,
you'd think that that sudden attack onto the A site
could have caught him slipping, but he delivers.
Pulling ahead of the rest for Maus,
looking to lock in their 12th
two championship points on the other side of this ramp.
But they do get torsion to miss one shot
And that opens the door for the lower play.
There's very little to lose here for Spirit.
Two pistols, a push down as Bomb gets chucked over
for Magic's responsibility, but it's awkward.
As he goes and scoops that up, single swings.
P250 challenge denied, and now no Bomb plant for Shiro
to try to play off of.
This is a confident round out of Spinks.
A quad kill in the end.
Two chances to shut it down in Malta.
And they win the easy one.
They get the filthy multi-kill.
It's such crisp rifle work out of Spinks.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, you can't tell if it's Spinks, Zellix, PR who are getting multi-kills like that.
They're all so sharp.
Because Spirit invested like that, didn't get a bomb plant.
Two back-to-back rounds.
This time for all the marbles.
Again, not a single rifle.
Now is it a grand final as it starts with two stomps?
Come out swinging in this best of five.
Show us evolution in a question mark that was Dust2.
Three weeks of practice as a five and we are watching their evolution before our very eyes.
It's an opening kill from Zershin, an off angle, just different looks outer to try and
solve this problem. Whether that's the challenge out of PR out through secret, whether that's
this time Surtian's new spot, it puts Spirit in such a daunting position. Pistols in hand,
needs to play with, but a grueling man disadvantage.
4v5.
And this one might come towards PR.
We'll see.
Donk making headway outside, looking to wrap into Mini.
This is going to force a hand from the M4,
but he just leaves, and it's not held by Zontics.
Top-up player dealt with.
Oh, what in the world?
Beautiful shot to try to kick it off into that A site.
But the wrap play goes south.
Leave it to PR, newest piece of mouse to get his hands on the final round that
mousers will need this team from the start of 2026 such a mainstay throughout
2025 but they have done it now with Zershin at the helm of this new project
blown out of the water every time they go up against spirit so far this year but
The second season begins difference.
One step forward, this time now in Malta.
Such a promising look for this new mouse.
You have to be so proud of yourselves as your mouse,
taking down Spirit in this fashion
with the calls that we saw at assertion,
with a debut out of PR, went above and beyond.
And the fact that they could keep their same energy
of having different people show up in different rounds,
except for some reason they all look like star players
in their own right. Not just contributors as the rounds rolled on. It's so impressive
that Zershin's down a way to make space for everybody to succeed while he still plays
well and you can still give him so much credit as the IGL.
Getting so much value out of so much talent, Mao's looking to return to the top at an event
that did not feature the top dogs because they couldn't keep up their enemy to bargain.
your Blast Bounty 2026 Season 2 Champions!
Lo and behold, it's...
Mouse!
And with that mouse stand here as champions of the Blast Bounty, please, everyone in the
studio, make some noise!
Psycho, just a couple of weeks of practice, obviously you're able to play from the HQ,
really travel out in person, get the job done, but some very close games.
A lot of back and forth, but you showed improvement each and every time.
Just tell me what it took from you, from Zipnix, the rest of the team,
to make this possible, because normally spirit has your number.
They do, yeah, and they improve when you talk about that.
That's what it's all about, right?
Especially with this new group.
Got to take it a day at a time.
I think the guys put in a ton of work over the last few weeks.
Also the last few years, to be honest, and I'm happy.
we finally get a little bit of that fruit because there's more fuel to keep going.
More fuel to keep going, I love that mate.
Torsi, you're putting the heavy trophy down, I understand why.
Now, you had an MVP level performance the whole way through.
You didn't stop from online to LAN.
You told me before, right? It felt like you were in a slump before this.
But right here, you dominated things changed around.
Is it just because of the way Zertian's using you?
Is this confidence in yourself again?
Talk me through it.
Yeah, I think it's a combination of both. I think Sertian is a really good Algae and he knows how to use his pieces, but at the same time I put a lot of work into it to get back into my form and yeah, but I have to give credit to Cyclone, to all the players, to Sertian, I think he's using his pieces really good and also to my sport psychologist.
Okay, nice.
Yeah, he helped me a lot, so yeah.
It worked out for you.
and Zellex over here first grand final first trophy and I'll say this when I
was watching you play it didn't seem like you were feeling the pressure or the
effects of it I spoke to you earlier in the tournament you were staying so
positive remaining really calm throughout these situations but what does it
mean to you to be lifting this trophy so early on in your career yeah I mean I'm
I'm fucking happy to be honest you know I'm really happy and like I said yesterday
in the interview, that I just try to stay present as much as I can every round.
You know, don't think about the future or the past, whatever happened happened.
You cannot do much about it.
And yeah, I'm absolutely happy that we beat Spirit because, you know, I don't think anybody
expected it.
And it's instant performance from the guys, I think.
It was a really tough game.
The last two rounds where I was fried on air, I was so happy that Lotang gave three on the
table.
So yeah, I'm just absolutely happy.
And yeah, thanks for the fans and the support from everybody.
Zershin, you've had a few trophies in your career but this time it's as an
IGL. We've spoke many times about the way you wanted to lead the team and what
it happens to go through this but just tell me these first couple of maps in
there. How did that feel for you where obviously you may have not had as much
pressure? We spoke about it in the pre-match interview right? Yeah definitely
I think today they felt the pressure a lot more than us they also had a lot more
to lose. We're a new team and yeah I mean if we think we did an amazing job
today we made it really hard for them and I'm just really happy we came up on top and in terms of
you guys being able to come out on top on this one how much did it take from you in terms of
planning preparing getting ready for spirit because they were kind of they had your number
mentally as well yeah definitely they won seven times but nobody meets most eight times in a row
so I guess that works out for us but Jokes aside I think Zeepniks and Cyclone did a great job
preparing us for the game obviously yesterday we didn't have much time to prepare as players and
They made sure that we have a lot of good things, so thanks to them.
And I just want to ask, you did the mentality switch a bit once you're up 2-0?
Did you start to think about, okay, look, we can close it out, we can't, you lift this trophy, did that change at all?
Maybe why you lost the Ancient?
Well, I think the first two moves were really good, so maybe we kind of got ahead of ourselves a little bit.
Also, the Ancient start was amazing, so I think on this side we maybe could have felt it a little bit.
We lost some key rounds and we lost a bit of trust in each other,
but I think that coming into Nuke here, we bounced back and the three really good maps,
and they're really good, they're half in ancient, so I'm really proud of the guys.
You should be proud of it all mate, well done.
Spiggs, this was a crazy grand final from you. You go back to some passive positions,
you spoke about it being maybe less fun, I heard you say on the HLTV interview,
but it looked like you were having more than a lot of fun in this map. What changed for you
within this series? Was it just like the game plan following that, where you just feeling it,
it taught me through it. Yeah I would say it was a good game for me. I enjoyed it and
thank you for my teammates for helping me play this good and I couldn't do it without
them and I just want to say one month ago I lost my grandfather so this win and everything
I just send love to my family. Love man, thank you very much. And last but certainly not
least PR you've had about a year and a half in the tier one level you come into
mouths you have to take some new positions on you told me this was not on
camera this behind the stage you told me I'm gonna watch POV's I'm gonna put
that extra working you're being very hard on yourself but you're putting that
working and now you lift your first tier one trophy so what do you want to say
now mate I don't know it feels really good I wasn't feeling the best yesterday
evening because I got punished again on some of my new positions and now I feel
reborn. It's really nice. I'm still very happy. I would be very happy too and you
were coming in sharp man your T sides were looking great the whole way. Once
these maps started to go your way you're getting these kills. Did that confidence
start building as to why you're able to deliver the way you did across the
Grand Final? I guess so. I guess so too. But with that guys your Blast Premier
Bouncy Champions, it's Miles!
A monstrous effort here for Miles to overcome the mountain that is spirit in a grand final.
An immeasurable amount of effort, dedication, hard work put in from all of these guys, right?
of these guys, right? Not just the five that we see in the server, but their coach, their
support staff as well. So much goes into this one for Maus to be able to lift their first
last trophy.
This was an act of vengeance coming out from Maus to lose seven times in a row, to win
on the eighth. And I would also say that it's a testament to great coaching. Gonna continue
to sing the praises of Sikrone and what he's been able to accomplish in such a short amount
time with a brand new IGL, yes exertion has great ideas and yes there's some great players
but I felt like it was clear it was night and day different who was coming out better
for the game plans that they put together the night before. Yeah the important thing is this is a
best of five you see a team that's had a change up in the IGL a change up in a player you go into
a best of three you can prepare three maps or two maps for a best of three going into a best of five
and taking it four maps and still being clearly prepared with a great game plan for all of them
Incredibly impressive. I think the biggest one just being dust to like just half the nominal
They looked because PR was asked about it and he talked about it
He felt bad yesterday because he got punished again and he's sort of walking away
Maybe with his head a little low but with the help of everyone around him
You see him show up and he did feel like a different beast in the grand final too
He was great for the first couple of maps for sure that he can walk away with his head held high
PR last year was constantly being talked about in that rookie of the year race
By the end of the year he fell out of the podium finish. He was not in that top three
There were people that ended up passing him like Molotowai, Mikasa and Kioski
But now you can see some of that potential that was so revered in the previous year for Gamer Legion and
Even though the previous season for him was a bit rocky on Gamer Legion
You knew that the potential was there and I'm so glad that he was able to show it in this grand final
You come into this mouse roster and not only having to change positions
but change play style have to play more passive be a rock on a B bomb site on dust to without much help have to play ramp
where you have to stay alive constantly. He did that incredibly effectively on the last map of nuke there as well. Just a great performance to see him bounce
back from as you're saying, very tough performances in the quarters and the semis. But as they say, you do learn more from a loss. I think you learned a lot from the struggles
that he had in those in those games. So coming into the grand final, just a great performance from him.
It's been a great journey for
mouse. I'm just like running back
through what was those last few
rounds on nuke and my heart was
racing for them because you have
to wonder when you get equal to
couple times and you have to save
a couple times when it feels like
easy to win rounds and no longer
easy. You start question marking
and putting down to it and they
press it through that as well. It
almost felt like they were going to
throw it away at the end. They were
to him, but then they come into the final few rounds and that's where Spinks, I mean Spinks in this
series had been so incredible and he was instrumental to helping them close it out.
He was excellent but so much of this game I felt like was one and just kind of the
ideas behind the plays. I think that the there wasn't as much sort of sexy highlights that
you're going to walk away from if you're moused on this one. It just goes to show that sometimes
it's just about the little things. I think Mous is a kind of team that they just do what you're
supposed to and they do it right. Oftentimes when we have this broad overview of what we see
our team strengths and team's weaknesses, it's weird that when we watch a game play out that
sometimes the tier one teams don't always have that same beat on them like Spirit today
didn't on mouse. But Cyclone, he's got his head to the ground. He knows exactly what strings to
pull against almost every single team and thankfully his players pulled through for him today too on
it. Yeah and one of the mid map segments Cyclone even mentioned, I think our Dust2 we have a really
really good tactical idea on the map. We understand the map strategically. It's the specifics.
It's the confidence that we're struggling with. And that's what mouse brings in terms
of strategy in terms of macro tactics. I think they've been up there as one of the best teams
for a very long time. They just haven't had the players come together in this way at the
right time to actually find this type of victory. One of the most enjoyable things I will say
about Blast Balney isn't necessarily seeing mouse finally win a Blast trophy. Seeing them
and come together as this new five men and do so well.
But it's the bounty bonanza, right?
The fun that we've had along the way
that everyone kind of walks away as a bit of a giver.
Sorry, winner, because there's so many givers here for us.
And there is an extra one going on right now
for you guys in chat.
Explanation mark, a poly market, if you want to join it.
It is going to be a Huntsman knife Doppler,
so a big skin giveaway for you all.
As, like I said, there's so many winners.
Look at them all smiling up there on stage
with the blast from him, Bounty Trophy.
Big winner for me.
Again, I'm just going to say, I think the MVP race comes down
to Sphinx, comes down to Torzzi.
But one guy that I know is actually.
Torzzi.
Torzzi.
Just in case anyone else had to be saying.
I'm a fan also.
I can't lie.
But I think that someone that's now
entering his name in the conversation
and should be considered in the top coaches of the year
has to be Cyclone.
Even for just winning a trophy like this,
the fact that it is spirit in the grand final that you overcome. Again, I don't think anybody
coming into this series is going to say the pieces are better on mouse, but it was very
apparent that the team that anti-strat it a little better and also just really had the
better idea of what the opponents were going to do was.
I am also curious. Sorry, I got a little distracted because I know PR kind of hit himself with
the trophy and he does have a mockery space. So I just, I'm just making sure he's okay
there.
that's a heavy heavy heavier than he thought. First time lifting one. Hopefully not the last time
lifting one there as he did get a little bit of a think on the side of his head.
But I just want to know how many hours of sleep their coaching staff has had over the last two
days because I know they've been up at least until 2.33am and then waking up again about like
eight to eight thirty to be able to prep even more before they go into it and be present with the
boys as much as possible. Well you can go without a little bit of sleep if you have game plans
It's prepared that effectively, and if you're not having to play in the server, I think
it was the foot guys that were talking about five hours sleep between games when you have
to shoot them, it matters more.
But the dedication from a cyclone, especially after the year last year where they struggled
to get into the Grand Finals and actually beat, overcome their demons to come into this
one, as mentioned many times, seven losses in a row, winning on the eighth, not giving
up after so much heartbreak and defeat.
Just incredible.
It's got to be a little bit of a sting for Spirit here, feeling like they're the favourites
all the way throughout Blast Bounty, feeling like they're the favourites here in the grand
final, having that big win streak against them broken here.
And before we say goodbye to them, we wanted to know a couple of final thoughts about how
this grand final went for them.
Spirit certainly came in as predicted favourites for this event with how they're playing, but
in the grand final, they fall short to miles.
I've got Magix with me here, the leader of the team.
Magic, I want to just start looking at what you feel went wrong in the server,
what was missing from your team in this opening couple of maps.
I feel like that some of us played like a plumber in the early being of the match
because we had all the chances to open up the series with this two being our comfort pick
and they're not that super comfortable map throughout a lot of the times.
Can I ask about this Dust2, when it comes to them not being comfortable on it, a lot of teams did try and abuse their B.
I know you went on like pistol and eco rounds, but you didn't go to it on a gun round until like round 10.
Was that part of the game plan? Was it a mistake? Like can you just tell me why you went for that?
Because you certainly know better than me.
It was kind of a bit of a bit of a bit of freestyle, you know.
during the game you change these things up and you know you should be adapting and
you know you can do different things. After you lost the opening two maps you
go on to ancient you still start from behind but you fight back within it. Did
you then believe that okay you got your team back to where they can compete for
this trophy was there still some worries from you that we're not at our best?
I mean, we just had to fire up for our ancient, yeah.
And we did kind of, we did it like better than the two previous maps,
because you know, the difference between Mirage I played,
like I was playing B-Ansure and I was just remaining in a clutch multiple times, you know.
It felt kind of weird. And you know, going into the ancient,
we finally felt some open and duals going our way.
And yeah, that was easier kind of.
And going into the Nuke, it was extremely shaky.
Yeah, it'd been force-wise against force-wise.
Yeah.
You were winning some of them?
Yeah, it was kind of a roller coaster half.
And if we only managed to play it calmer and play it better,
We would have won more rounds on CT side.
Now away from this, obviously losing is never fun,
but you've got to keep on the grind, you've got to keep going.
So I know EWC is coming up next.
What's Spirit doing to get ready for that?
Play counter-strike.
Play counter-strike.
Boot camp?
Yeah.
Boot camp to kill.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much.
It's all magic sad to see you go, but I'll see you at the other seat.
See you.
the next event. A hungry spirit.
No doubt when we do see them at
the next event, unfortunately,
they are going to be walking
away empty handed and all of
Maus having not only supporting
staff from the org, but of course
all those supporting loved ones
there joining them up on stage.
It's so awesome to get to share
a moment like this with those
people close to you. And us.
I feel like this victory is just even sweeter, given the fact that reminder this is the one year anniversary minus one day of them losing in the Cologne grand finals to this same spirit.
So it's going to feel just the revenge has been a work in progress for them. I know they would have wanted to win earlier, but maybe now can mark the time of something new, a new dawn for this mouse squad.
the game. And now it's been
a long time. It's been a
long time coming for the likes
of a torgy a psychone Zershin
the players that have been on
this roster for quite a while.
They've been waiting for this
sort of win to finally overcome
the final hurdle, even in the
Colonial mentioning they can
get over the vitality. They
can't get over the grand final
and actually win an event.
They've had a couple wins in
the past, but it feels like
ages ago at this point for
them. So certainly this must
be one of the sweetest wins
that they did right. Like we've said, it's been spirit favored all the way through since the
beginning of when we did see some pretty phenomenal upsets coming out of this blast bounty format
here to say goodbye to some of the other heavy favorites of Falcons, Vitality, Furia, Aurora
as well. And to just kind of question Mark, how is this team going to transition as a five-man
roster transition into offline as well? It was, it was maybe day two, day three that we started
to talk about spirit being the favorite of this event. As soon as you saw Vitality and Falcons
out of it, we talked about spirit and how important it was for Donk to pick this one up for his
number one race as well. But Mao is dethroning that and I think throwing a wrench in the works there.
Definitely. If you told Mao's at the beginning of the season that they could win a tournament
over the likes of Vitality, Falcons, Fury, Spirit, Practi... I'd say every elite team other than
Novi in attendance, they would probably say that's crazy, but even though they didn't
have to actually match up against them all, in a way this is still vindication that the
roster that they decided in the offseason to go with, to pick up Zellix and PR, to not
stick with JL or Brolin, or even maybe stick around with the impact, all of that has already
netted them a trophy, which the teams that have picked up those other players can't attest
to.
teams have to wait a long time to see a roster change pay off for themselves for miles. It's immediate this instant gratification for what they've put in so many hours for his individuals for it to click together as a five. But guys, it's been so much fun over the last two weeks with you all. I want to get one final thought, one of your favorite moments of lost bounty.
I think that's the last thing you're going to say on the broadcast, that's the last thing.
You're going to say that.
Unfortunately, if you won that, you might see him as the MVP.
Maybe.
Now he's going to end me on a high, come on bro, set me up here.
Okay, I will say it was great to see Sphinx play at that level for this grand final.
I feel like he kind of robbed that MVP trophy from Torsi who by the way
Really helped them get it over the line in the quarterfinals if you were there. I'm just gonna say this and they can't hear me
Spinks is in that 3d max game. They're not even walking into the semi-final or grand final
So I take that into account. Torsi was my MVP. That's for sure. I think he's the desk MVP for sure
Yeah, we just have it our out for
Hearts
Okay, all right, he's the people's MVP,
but he's still the Blast Valny champion here.
Maus, our winners.
Of course, thank you guys so much for joining us
along this journey.
A big thank you as well to everyone behind the cameras
that make this event what it is.
It has been so much fun to have banks join us here too.
But that's gonna be it for now.
Our Blast Valny season two presented by Polymarket
comes to a close.
We'll see you guys all in Porto.