We’ve occasionally gotten scoffed at when we say Spirit are a contender team, since a large part of their stint in tier one has been spent underdelivering.

The best mechanical player of all time continues delivering blinders week in and week out, and yet his four teammates (and coach) keep sh-tting the bed. It’s a constant cycle, and we’re eager to point it out in this newsletter week in and week out.

But one thing you’ll never see us do is count them - or rather, him - out of contending for the win.

FUT’s strong form from the upper part of the bracket initially carried into the grand final, as a gambled pick of Cache paid off with a brawly 13-10 victory. From here, we think FUT may leave Paris with a sense of what could have been.

A late comeback from 5-11 on the CT-side of Anubis ended up being for nought, as tN1R showed rare signs of life and Spirit closed the map in overtime. FUT stayed in the fight with a strong lead by 12-9 on Ancient, but once again Spirit took over the overtime period, with sh1ro and zont1x joining the supporting cast.

What could have been a 3-0 win for the young team in their biggest ever grand final was now a 1-2 deficit heading into Spirit’s second pick of Nuke. Keeping the energy up in that situation is tough, but one little Russian kid did.

Despite the map ending at 13-5 donk racked up 21 frags in what can only be described as a classic performance from the little goblin of pure Counter-Strike. We won’t even mention who got the MVP, because with a 1.50 rating, you already know.

As much as the other Spirit players delivering the minimum today was a key factor in the dub, it’s self-explanatory that donk is the reason we call this team a contender. When you have mechanical talent like that, you can never count anything out.

Just imagine what this kid would do on a team without hally.

(As well as zont1x, sh1ro, tN1R, and magixx.)