The future looks bright for Team Spirit in Counter-Strike.
In chopper they have an experienced leader, in sh1ro a game-changing AWPer, in zont1x and donk two young stars who can carry games, and in magixx they have the glue to fit it all together. It is a team that can hold a place at the top for a very long time.
They have already started life in CS2 with a bang. They won BetBoom Dacha after coming back from 0-2 down to Virtus.pro in the final, a feat never once achieved in CS:GO.
And then marked the opening to 2024 with a win at IEM Katowice that will go down in history.
But what were the Spirit teams like in the old era? How did they get to the point where they are one of the most feared teams in all of Counter-Strike? Let's take a look at the history of Team Spirit in CS.
Spirit's history in CS began in 2016 when they signed Team Phenomenon that included COLDY, S0tF1k, DavCost, kibaken, and Dima.
At that point, a tier-two CIS team, their first year on Spirit saw them win some small-scale online tournaments, but they wouldn't appear at a LAN until the Adrenaline Cyber League 2016, an event in which they placed last.
However, just a few weeks later, Spirit were successful at the CIS Minor for the ELEAGUE Atlanta Major, booking themselves a place in the Offline Qualifier for the Major itself.
Unfortunately, they were stopped in their tracks at that Offline Qualifier, falling 0-3 with losses to Dignitas, MOUZ, and Envy.
2017 would see the first changes to the Spirit team originally signed in the previous year. kibaken departed for starix in May, although that move was short-lived, and starix himself was replaced by arch in October.
The year would see Spirit return to online play for the most part, although they did compete in the CIS Minor's for both the PGL Major Krakow 2017 and the ELEAGUE Boston Major 2018, but were unsuccessful at both.
That isn't to say they didn't manage any success on LAN during the year, Spirit picked up their first LAN win in their CS history at BInary Dragons Prestige LAN in August 2017, overcoming Jame's AVANGAR in the grand final.
Spirit took the first steps to writing their CS history in 2018 by signing sdy. The Ukrainian would become a key player for them over the next few years, and his arrival marked a real turning point in their fortunes as an organisation.
By the end of 2018, Spirit had won another small LAN event but more importantly, they had also made their first Major in their history in Counter-Strike.
Although Spirit were eliminated in the Challengers Stage of the FACEIT London Major 2018 with a 2-3 record, their appearance at a Major was their first real taste of playing at the top level of CS, and it wouldn't be long before they would be pushing to be their more consistently.
Spirit made their second Major at IEM Katowice 2019. They fared worse at that event, however, and were eliminated in the Challengers Stage with a 0-3 record following defeats to ENCE, Vega Squadron, and North.
This disappointment cut deep for the organisation, and they immediately changed after the event.
DavCost and Dima lost their places on the team and were soon replaced by chopper and iDISBALANCE. It is at this point that the history of Spirit in CS truly began.
The first few months of chopper's tenure on Spirit would see middling results in online tournaments and an early exit from StarSeries Season 7.
It was a rough start, and it got worse as the team failed to advance from the CIS Minor to the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019.
Failure to even qualify for the Major resulted in more changes to the roster, and COLDY and S0tF1k lost their spots in favour of magixx and mir.
These two moves would give Spirit the firepower to be able to truly contend at these offline events when they made their sporadic appearances at them.
Sadly, their arrival coincided with Counter-Strike being forced online due to the pandemic.
Despite their now greater firepower, Spirit continued to be a middling team during the online era.
A bystander for the majority of the stretch of constant online tournaments, they were first victim to the rise of sh1ro and Ax1Le at Gambit and then utterly powerless as NAVI became dominant in 2021.
There was a notable change during the online era, though, Patsi and degster both arrived from Spirit, with Patsi becoming a sixth player and iDISBLANACE being transfer-listed in the wake of degster's arrival.
Another big change in 2021 was Hally's arrival on the main team. Previously a coach of the Academy team, he switched places with S0tFik, who returned to Spirit as an assistant coach earlier in the year.
The return to LAN at the end of 2021 would see Spirit endure another unsuccessful Major campaign at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021. Eliminated in the Challengers Stage with a 2-3 record, it sparked another rebuild for Spirit.
chopper, mir, and sdy were all benched and transfer-listed with sdy eventually leaving for MAD Lions.
Although mir would not return to the starting lineup, chopper was reinstated as Patsi would finally get his chance on the main team alongside s1ren, creating a lineup that would see Spirit enjoy their greatest run of success in their history in CS until the ascension of donk.
At the next Major, the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, Spirit would finally make it to the playoffs of a Major. degster was a revelation at the event.
His 1.16 HLTV rating would see Spirit go all the way to the semi-finals and give FaZe their hardest game during the event.
Despite this success, Spirit surprised everyone by benching degster after the event, with the AWPer going on to find a new home at OG.
degster was replaced by w0nderful, with the prodigious Ukrainian helping Spirit to maintain their level and make a second Major playoff at the IEM Rio Major 2022, losing to eventual defeated finalists HEROIC.
The final CS:GO Major would not see Spirit enjoy the same level of success. In fact, they would fail to make the BLAST.tv Paris Major altogether after recording a 0-3 record in the RMR.
This failure saw huge changes in the squad. w0nderful and s1ren were benched, while Patsi was signed by Team Liquid.
With Spirit now looking to rebuild from within as they had done before, the trio of donk, zont1x, and ArtFr0st were all promoted from the Academy team.
The changes would see them have a lot of success in online tournaments, finishing second to BIG and Cloud9 in two events. They also made it to the top eight of the Thunderpick World Championships 2023, losing to Monte.
This run of events would also see them win a smaller LAN event, the Dunav Party LAN, where they were victorious over Virtus.pro in the final.
That wasn't the only final they'd win over Virtus.pro in 2023, either. In their final event of the year, Spirit made history by becoming the first team to reverse sweep a best-of-five final, a feat never once achieved during CS:GO.
Once again, success for Spirit was followed by a change, although this one was an inarguable upgrade as they replaced ArtFr0st with sh1ro.
They then kicked off 2024 with a bang, picking up their first S-tier trophy in their CS history by winning IEM Katowice 2024.
An incredible performance all around, the victory in Poland announced Spirit as a true contender in tier one.
Already a favourite thanks to the hype around donk and the guaranteed firepower of sh1ro, seeing them come together and win a championship so quickly must have been a terrifying prospect for every other team.
They followed this up with another Major playoff appearance at the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, losing to FaZe in the quarter-final.
Despite this loss, the future looks bright for Spirit in CS.
Spirit are only just beginning to write their history in Counter-Strike, and given the amount of young talent in their roster, their trophy cabinet is sure to get plenty of new additions during Counter-Strike 2.
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