Team Spirit defeated Virtus.Pro in the semi finals of the ESL One: Road to Rio 2020 in a full 3 map affair.
The match did not have overtimes, no comebacks, something which we have got used to in the previous 2-3 days.
VP picked Inferno, Spirit picked Mirage and Overpass was selected as the decider if needed. Both these teams picked maps which they were comfortable playing on, but Spirit did have a slight advantage considering Overpass and Mirage both hadn’t been too good for VP.
VP started Inferno on the offensive side but failed to lay down their authority on the Spirit squad. They did go on a 4 round winning streak in the first quarter but Spirit had answers for most of the tactics VP had in place. The half ended with a 9-6 scoreline in Spirit’s favor. VP won the second pistol and converted three rounds there after but Spirit were determined to take the map and were successful in doing so. They won 16-13 with “Chopper” leading with 27 kills.
Mirage was up next and VP needed to make a statement and win more importantly to keep their hopes alive. And boy, did they make a statement! VP started on the CT side and won 12 rounds straight from the beginning. Spirit were caught off guard with calculated aggression from VP while some of their rounds were straight up flat. They did win 3 rounds at the end of the first half but it was too late then.
VP quickly closed the map winning the second map by winning the required rounds straight up in the next half. They defeated Spirit on their map pick 16-3! “Qikert” and “Buster” were tied with 18 kills but no one from the team was under performing as such.
With momentum on VP’s side, Spirit needed a to bring their heads together to proceed to the final. We don’t know what they talked in between the break, but whatever they did worked sure as hell. They returned VP’s favor to them by absolutely crushing them on their CT side winning round after round. They won the half 11-4, but the most disturbing part of the final map was that VP didn’t look like making a comeback in the next half. And those fears were quickly turned into reality as Spirit mopped the victory, defeating VP 16-4 and progress to finals of the CIS region.
Team Spirit will either face Winstrike or Hard Legion in the finals of the CIS region and will be feeling confident to win that too.
Note:- The Rio major was scheduled to take place in May 2020 but due to the ongoing pandemic the major was shifted to November 2020. The prize pool of first Major will be added to the November Major. ESL on its part have decided to host three qualification rounds in order for teams to remain at their peak. Each qualifying stage will have Regional Major Points(RMR) which will be added to determine the qualification order. Each qualifying stage will have a prize pool of $255,000 divided across the six regions. To read more about this, click here.
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