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 "somedieyoung" Orudjev'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.