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We continue to follow Counter-Strike 2 of the highest calibre. At the BLAST Premier: World Final 2024, where $1,000,000 is being raffled off, the Long Sought play-offs are underway.
Spirit and FaZe Clan have made it to the main stage. The teams will start the play-offs of BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 with the quarter-finals: the winner goes to G2 Esports, and the loser leaves the championship.
We're trying to figure out how the FaZe - Spirit pairing will end and who will make it to the semi-finals of BLAST Premier: World Final 2024.
Let's go.
Spirit form
We open the analysis of the match Spirit - FaZe Clan with the analysis of Spirit's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win around 1.6.
The 2023 season has been very busy for Spirit. The Serbian club has played wherever they can, but they have not managed to get any significant results.
They started the previous season with an appearance at IEM Master Katowice 2023, where they finished in the top 12. Then there was the local CCT Central Europe Malta Finals 2023, where they finished in the top 6.
One of the biggest tournaments of the 2023 season for Spirit was ESL Pro League Season 17, where the Dragons finished in TOP-28. They tried to make it to the Major in Paris, but again all in vain.
From the middle and up to the end of the year Spirit played at local events of small calibre. And they were quite successful, it is worth mentioning: TOP-1 at CCT North Europe Series #6, TOP-2 at CCT Online Finals #2, victory at Dunav Party LAN and Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #2.
- Team Spirit roster: chopper, zont1x, sh1ro, donk, magixx
At the end of the year they won the BB Dacha. In 2024, BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024 was the first major event for the Dragons. Spirit played frankly poorly there: they finished in the top 16 at their debut BLAST Championship, advancing to the Spring Showdown.
At IEM Katowice 2024 Spirit started their performance at the Play-In stage. There they beat Apeks 13-0 without a chance, and then confidently (except for 2 maps) beat MongolZ 2-0, thus qualifying for the group stage. The group stage was not a problem for Spirit either: after giving up only 1 map to NaVi, they easily made it to the play-offs by beating CoL and FaZe Clan 2-0. The IEM Katowice 2024 play-offs confirmed Spirit's dominance, as they easily shut down Falcons (2-0) and it was even easier against FaZe in the grand finals (3-0).
After the triumph at Katowice 2024, Spirit went to PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024, where they managed to reach the play-offs, but Ledge and FaZe Clan in the first round of the main stage. Spirit took the top 8.
Spirit had a kind of successful performance at BB Dacha, but a 0-3 loss to MOUZ in the grand finals spoilt things a bit.
At IEM Dallas 2024 Team Spirit had a very easy time in the group stage, not giving up a single map in the B basket. However, they didn't manage to beat everyone in the play-offs: Vitality intervened at the TOP-4 stage and knocked Spirit out of the tournament.
Later Spirit won the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. And then came a string of poor performances, including Top 8 and Top 16 at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2024.
ESL Pro League Season 20 Team Spirit started with Group B, where they defeated Ledge and MIBR in the second round of the upper grid and after dropping below, they had no trouble beating The MongolZ and 3DMAX, which gave them a pass to the play-offs, where they beat FURIA 2-0 in their first match. Later they ran into NaVi, after their defeat they finished the pro league.
Spirit played at BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024, where they didn't find success either. They only finished in the top 6.
At BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 Spirit started their journey from Group B, where they fought against G2 Esports, Team Spirit, Vitality and Liquid. They went 1-1, beating Vitality but losing to G2 in the playoffs seeding match.
Team Spirit's Mapple
The best map of Team Spirit remains Vertigo, where the Brazilians played 5 times and won 3 maps. Next is Mirage, with 7 games and 4-3 stats.
The neutral choice for Team Spirit will be Nuke and Ancient. The Brazilians have 6 maps there and the score is 3-3 on each.
The worst is Overpass (2-3) and Inferno (1-2).
FaZe Clan form
We continue the analysis of the match FaZe Clan - Team Spirit with the analysis of FaZe Clan's form. In this match they will play the second number with the odds of victory around 2.2.
From the main achievements of the last season - getting into the top three at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 and winning at ESL Pro League Season 17. Also this year FaZe got the award for the 4th season of Intel Grand Slam, enriched by $1,000,000.
Speaking of award tournaments, there was less luck here. Top-12 at IEM Rio 2023, and Top-4 at IEM Dallas 2023. At the only Major e in the season FaZe did not cope with the tension, but made it to TOP-8.
Before the Long Conference IEM Cologne 2023 they attended two tournaments of BLAST series: Spring Final 2023 and Fall Groups 2023. At the Finals they were ranked Top 6, and at the Fall Groups 2023 they were in the top three, earning themselves a slot at the Autumn Finals.
- FaZe Clan line-up: karrigan, rain, Frozen, ropz, broky.
Despite the ubiquitous Reshuffle and rather "average" results for the year, FaZe didn't change the main roster. However, there were some substitutions: FaZe introduced a new coach, who became the legendary Pole NEO. On his post he replaced the legendary RobbaN and it affected FaZe's gameplay in IEM Cologne 2023, where FaZe took the top-12.
The setbacks continued from there onwards. At Gamers8 2023 FaZe Clan took a similar place (9-12), Ledgeiv at the Long Segment of the Vp tournament with the score 2-0.
Things didn't go too well at ESL Pro League Season 18. FaZe made it to the play-offs on the top grid of Group C, defeating 9Z Team and Fnatic, but in the match for seeding in the main stage they lost to NaVi with the score 0-2. However, FaZe didn't manage to play long at ESL Pro League Season 18: in the first play-offs match, which for FaZe started from the second stage, the team met MOUZ. The future EPL champions sent FaZe Clan home. As a result FaZe found themselves on the 9-12th place of the top tournament.
FaZe rehabilitated quite quickly. Already at IEM Sydney 2023 they triumphed with the victory over CoL in the grand final.
Thunderpick World Championship 2023 FaZe Clan have a great time. The titular European club passed the group stage without problems becoming the best team of the quartet B, and then took part in the play-offs of the championship.
The first opponent for FaZe in the play-offs of Thunderpick World Championship 2023 was MOUZ. A serious opponent, but FaZe coped with it: 2-1 in favour of the champions of IEM Sydney 2023.
At CS Asia Championship 2023 FaZe confidently made it to the play-offs through Group B. Having taken the unquestionable TOP-1 position the team went directly to the semi-finals of the tournament. FaZe then went head-to-head: first they defeated ENCE 2-1 and in the grand final they defeated MOUZ 2-0.
One of the most stable teams of the season has a pretty extensive record in the first half of the year. However, it predominantly consists of "near" top results.
Among the main achievements - getting into the top three at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 and winning at ESL Pro League Season 17. Also this year FaZe got the award for the 4th season of Intel Grand Slam, enriched by $1,000,000.
Speaking of award tournaments, there was less luck here. Top-12 at IEM Rio 2023, and Top-4 at IEM Dallas 2023. At the only Major e in the season FaZe couldn't cope with the tension, but made it to the TOP-8.
At CS Asia Championship 2024 FaZe confidently made it to the play-offs through Group B. Having taken unquestionable TOP-1 the team went directly to the semi-finals of the tournament. Then FaZe went head-to-head: first they defeated ENCE with the score 2-1 and in the grand final they won MOUZ with the score 2-0.
Next, FaZe had a series of "failures". They finished TOP-8 at EPL Season 19, TOP-6 at IEM Dallas 2024 and BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024, TOP-8 at Esports World Cup 2024 and TOP-12 at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024.
At IEM Cologne 2024, FaZe Long Sogpeg started off with a win over Team Liquid, but went on to Ledge or Vitality in the play-offs. After falling into the bottom set of IEM Cologne 2024, FaZe outscored Falcons 2-0, and then won their best match of the tournament in a bye, comingback against Liquid from a 3-12 deficit. However, the momentum was not enough: FaZe lost to sAw and left the tournament on top-6.
Later FaZe played at BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where they took TOP-1-2.
At ESL Pro League S20 FaZe failed in the first round of Group A, losing to Sangal Esports, and then cameback in the middle set, beating FlyQuest, NiP. However, the comeback lasted for a long time, because after the meeting with CoL FaZe Clan left the championship on 12-18 lines.
After the failure at ESL Pro League S20, FaZe took the top 4 at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2024, and then - Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024 with the final top 8.
BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 met in Group A, where they played to a 1-1 score. They first lost to MOUZ, but then snatched a win from NaVi in a match for life at the tournament.
Map FaZe Clan
The best FaZe clan is Mirage. They played 12 matches and won 9 of them.
Then there were Overpass with 8 matches and 5 wins. They play Nuke (7 matches, 4 wins), Inferno (9 matches, 5 wins). Worse is Ancient with 3 wins in 6 matches, and worst of all was Anubis. His FaZe was picked 7 times, but played with a winrate of 42%.
They don't play on Vertigo.
History of head-to-head meetings Spirit - FaZe
In the season 2024 the teams played each other 5 times, of which Spirit won three times.
Predicted result of the match FaZe - Team Spirit on BLAST Premier: World Final 2024
In this match I will be betting on Spirit. To me, FaZe look pretty raw on this BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 and one could write off such "sluggishness" with the group stage, but no. I believe Spirit will continue the positive trend of head-to-head meetings with FaZe.
Bottom line: Spirit win.