Spirit put an end to Astralis’ Cinderella run in BLAST Premier World Final 2024

Team Spirit eliminated Astralis from the BLAST Premier World Final 2024 on Nov. 2 after a 2-1 victory and qualified for the grand finals against G2.

Astralis had high hopes of reaching their first grand final under Casper "cadiaN" Møller's leadership as they had defeated Natus Vincere and MOUZ by 2-0 in the group stage. However, Spirit put an end to the Danes' Cinderella run in Singapore and reached their fifth grand final of the year.

We'll see if Spirit can beat G2 this time around as the Russians lost to Nikola "NiKo" Kovač and co. in the group stage.

But, enough talking about tomorrow's grand finals. Here's our full recap for the Spirit vs. Astralis semifinal match at the BLAST Premier World Final.

Astralis didn't have the most inspiring T-side on Dust 2. Spirit often stacked three players on the A bombsite to fight for Long control, and it took way too much time for Astralis explore other parts of the map.

Just when the Danes were finding some success, the first half finished 7-5 in favor of Spirit and they went on to show Astralis how to play Dust 2's T-side. The Russians won six rounds in a row with Boris "magixx" Vorobyev hitting a triple kill to close things out. The MVP of the map, though, was donk. The prodigy got 20 kills and only died 10 times.

What a resurgence from Astralis after Dust 2. The all-Danish squad looked like a completely different team and mowed down Spirit on Vertigo.

Everything about Astralis' performance on this map was perfect. They traded frags so well on both sides of the map, picking Spirit apart. And when the round was going the other way, their players stepped up individually as you can see in this superb one-versus-three clutch by Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz. Also, Martin "stavn" Lund stole the show with 22 frags in just 15 rounds.

A stomp wasn't on anyone's cards after what Astralis showed on Vertigo, but it happened regardless. It felt like Spirit mentally reset after the second map and came to Ancient determined to get their revenge.

The map started well for Astralis as cadiaN put a stop to Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov's ace clutch attempt in the first pistol. But, it was all downhill from there as Spirit won the second round with a force buy and went on to dominate Astralis.

There was little Astralis could do in the second half as they found themselves 9-3 down. They found a couple of rounds, but the scoreboard gap proved to be too much, and Spirit closed it out 13-5 thanks to some good CT protocols.

That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more BLAST Premier World Final 2024 coverage.