Spirit, Winstrike through to playoffs in Katowice

Spirit defeated Syman 2-0 while Winstrike beat AVANGAR 2-1 in the winners' matches at the CIS Minor to advance to the playoffs.

The Group A winners' match between Syman and Spirit kicked off on Dust2, with the former starting on the T-side. Maksim "⁠t0rick⁠" Zaikin clutched a 1vs2 to win the pistol and he made it 3-0 after a double kill in a 2vs3 in the first weapon round.

Pavel "⁠COLDYY1⁠" Veklenko and Vadim "⁠DavCost⁠" Vasilyev ramped up the defense with their AWPs as Spirit took six rounds in a row. Artem "⁠iDISBALANCE⁠" Egorov ended the streak with a 1vs2 clutch, despite only having a CZ-75. Syman also picked up three of the following four rounds to lead 8-7 at halftime.

COLDYY1 and Dmitriy "⁠Dima⁠" Bandurka teamed up in the second pistol to make it 8-8, with the former getting a triple and the latter picking up a double kill. Spirit lost against a half buy in the 19th round but responded by extending their lead to 14-9. DavCost & company went on to close out the game with a 16-11 scoreline.

Spirit got off to a good start on Mirage, picking up the first four rounds on the CT-side. Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy and iDISBALANCE's double kills gave Syman their first round but Spirit responded by taking three rounds in a row (7-1).

After Spirit won the first half 12-3, Syman grabbed the second pistol victory thanks to a 1vs3 clutch by t0rick. Syman came back from 14-6 and earned one map point but Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev's quad kill gave the 30th round to Spirit, taking the game to overtime. COLDYY1's team finished off the map in the second overtime, winning it 22-18 and taking the series 2-0 to advance to the playoffs.

AVANGAR and Winstrike squared off in the Group B winners' match. Aurimas "⁠Kvik⁠" Kvakšys got a quad kill in the pistol round on Dust2 to put Winstrike 1-0 ahead. The Russian team had a 3-1 lead but Alexey "⁠qikert⁠" Golubev got double kills in consecutive rounds to tie it at 3-3.

AVANGAR picked up all the remaining rounds in the first half, leading 11-4. David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan stepped up in the second pistol round, picking up a triple kill in a 2vs2 to give Winstrike their fifth round. However, this was the last round they got as AVANGAR went on a five round streak to win the map 16-5.

The series continued on Cache where the T-sided Winstrike won the pistol after Jan "⁠wayLander⁠" Rahkonen's triple kill. Just like on Dust2, Winstrike couldn't show much presence after winning the pistol as AVANGAR made it 4-2. Bektiyar "⁠fitch⁠" Bahytov and Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov clutched a 2vs4 to make it 5-3 and AVANGAR led 9-6 at halftime.

Winstrike lost the first two rounds in the second half and was about to lose another one when n0rb3r7 clutched a 1vs2 to keep his team in the contest. After that crucial round, Winstrike managed to get the 16-13 map victory thanks to n0rb3r7's 31-kill performance.

n0rb3r7 picked up where he left off by securing the pistol victory on Train with a triple kill, giving his T-sided team the early advantage. AVANGAR trailed 6-4 and kept the game close after ten rounds but Winstrike won five in a row to finish the first half 11-4 ahead. Winstrike ended the game swiftly, winning the map 16-7 to take the 2-1 series victory.