Team Spirit beat FUT 2-1 to open its BLAST Rivals campaign in Hong Kong, despite taking the first 13-0 defeat in the organization’s Counter-Strike 2 history on Nuke. Spirit won Cache and Ancient around the shutout, then secured a playoff place and an upper-final meeting with G2.
FUT played with coach András “coolio” Fercsák as a stand-in after in-game leader Aulon “Krabeni” Fazlija missed the event because of visa issues. G2 reached the upper final by beating IEM Beijing 2026 champion MOUZ 2-1, recovering from a map deficit and closing the series on Ancient and Inferno.
Nuke ran against both teams’ recent records. In the 12 months before the match, FUT had lost all five Nuke maps it played against VRS top-five teams. Spirit had won five straight Nuke maps picked by its opponents and had a 59% T-side win rate on the map over the previous three months, according to HLTV’s pre-match statistics.
After the match, Danil “donk” Kryshkovets blamed Spirit’s T side, noting that the team usually takes nine to 11 rounds on the CT side of Nuke. Asked by Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg about his recent form, donk brushed off the concern and said winning was what mattered.
FUT built a 12-0 lead, then Džiugas “dziugss” Steponavičius won a 1v1 against sh1ro to finish the map 13-0. The loss snapped Spirit’s run of five straight wins on opponent-picked Nuke maps.
13:0 SECURED ✅ #BLASTPremier @FUTesportsgg pic.twitter.com/zLGhfA9drh
— BLAST Premier 💥 (@BLASTPremier) November 11, 2026
Spirit answers on Ancient
Spirit responded with a 13-5 win on Ancient. Donk and Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich led the attack, while Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia made an impact on the CT side to keep FUT from mounting a comeback.
Other rounds included a tN1R defuse attempt that fell short by 0.021 seconds, a defuse stuck by dem0n, a three-kill entry from donk, and a 1v2 win and three-kill P250 round from zont1x.
Four teams have secured playoff places
Spirit and G2 join FURIA and Vitality as the four teams already qualified. FURIA beat Legacy 13-10 and 13-7, while Vitality beat Falcons 13-10 on Anubis and Dust2. They will meet in the other upper final.
The upper-final winners advance directly to the semifinals, while the losing teams begin in the quarterfinals. Falcons will face Legacy and FUT will meet MOUZ in elimination matches for the last two places in the six-team playoff.
What stood out to you about Spirit’s response after the 13-0 Nuke loss? Follow the remaining playoff qualifiers and the upper-final route to the semifinals on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
