Spirit and MOUZ will clash in the Shanghai Major semifinals after eliminating The MongolZ and Team Liquid.
Team Spirit and MOUZ are the first teams through the Perfect World Shanghai Major semifinals after convincing victories over Team Liquid and The MongolZ on Dec. 12. These results mean there are nothing but European teams left in the Major.
MOUZ and Spirit will play against each other in one of the Shanghai Major semifinals this Saturday, Dec. 14.
They've clashed four times throughout the year and the scoreboard is currently 2-2. Spirit won the last match, which was played in August at the BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2.
The previous stakes, however, weren't as high as the upcoming match on Saturday as the winner of this bout will advance to the Shanghai Major grand finals.
Here's the recap of MOUZ vs. The MongolZ and Spirit vs. Liquid.
Shanghai Major quarterfinals: MOUZ 2-0 The MongolZ
Although many pundits predicted The MongolZ would defeat MOUZ again in the Shanghai Major, the Mongolians seemingly felt the pressure this time around.
The MongolZ enjoyed flying start on both maps of the series — Ancient and Nuke — but MOUZ kept their head cool and adapted accordingly to the situation.
The early lead on Ancient happened mostly because Ayush "mzinho" Batbold was hitting every tough shot on their T-side.
The MongolZ carried the momentum to the second half, but lost all of it after MOUZ found an unlikely force-buy victory. The game went to overtime as a result of it, and MOUZ played better to win Ancient by a narrow 16-14.
Despite throwing away five matchpoints in regulation on Ancient, The MongolZ managed to reset and started Nuke well on the CT-side. However, this map in particular is one of MOUZ's specialties and they eventually found their groove on the T-side.
The five rounds MOUZ got on the T-side of Nuke proved to be more than enough as they displayed a nearly perfect CT-side. The young IGL Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek had all the right reads on how The MongolZ were playing on the T-side, and MOUZ kept getting first kills.
The MongolZ ran out of steam and saw MOUZ close out Nuke with a relatively easy 13-9 victory off the back of an impressive consistency from the B anchor Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo.
Related articles
Shanghai Major quarterfinals: Spirit 2-0 Liquid
Spirit proved to the Counter-Strike scene once again that there's little other teams can do when the superstar Danil "donk" Kryshkovets is having a good day.
The 17-year-old annihilated Liquid on both maps of the series and helped Spirit to win Anubis (13-9) and Dust 2 (13-11).
No words describe donk's individual performance better than the two aces he got against Liquid on Anubis. Liquid's AWPer Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak tried his best to keep them in the game, but with Russel "Twistzz" Van Dunkel having a subpar performance, they lacked firepower.
The script repeated on Dust 2 as both donk and Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov were grabbing multikills for Spirit.
This time around, however, ultimate wasn't nearly as good and Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis added one more poor performance to his resumé in 2024, thus cementing any chances Liquid had in the series.
The Shanghai Major resumes tomorrow with the remaining quarterfinals: G2 vs. HEROIC and Vitality vs. FaZe Clan.
That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more Shanghai Major news.
