Regardless of coming into the occasion ranked sixteenth on this planet in Counter-Strike 2, PARIVISION had been topped champions of BLAST Bounty Season 1, and in doing so, could have inadvertently proved that Sergey “hally” Shavaev is the issue with Group Spirit.
A debut occasion for PARIVISION with Ivan “zweih” Gogin, the previous Spirit man shone in the course of the on-line section, ending it because the second-highest rated participant on 1.61. They then headed right into a playoff bracket that may pit them towards a few of the finest groups on this planet: Falcons, FURIA, and Spirit.
Spirit, who had been additionally debuting a brand new look squad for the occasion, confronted struggles outdoors of their upset defeat by the hands of PARIVISION, and people struggles level in direction of issues that zweih was wrongfully blamed for throughout his time on the workforce.
Misprofiling Stars
It’s vital to say that zweih’s transfer to Spirit maybe got here too quickly. Though he had been a star for Nemiga for some time and loved a breakout efficiency on the BLAST Austin Main, Nemiga had been very a lot a tier two workforce, and taking the instantaneous leap to the elite stage of tier one might need been a step too far.
That is evidenced by zweih’s CT aspect performances throughout his stint with Spirit, the place, regardless of protecting most of his most popular roles from his time on Nemiga, zweih struggled and recorded a 1.00 score, an enormous lower from his 1.13 score on Nemiga.
T sides had been a higher concern, although, with zweih slipping to 0.92 from 1.15. Nonetheless, it was on the T aspect the place zweih really skilled function adjustments. Throughout his time on Nemiga, the younger Russian was a lurker tasked with really being disruptive in late rounds, discovering openings towards weakened groups or punishing rotating gamers in put up vegetation.
When he moved to Spirit, that every one modified. Whereas nonetheless lurking, zweih was not afforded the chance to capitalise on these timings, and as an alternative was tasked with turning into the entry for bombsite executes.
This can be a suffocating function, usually requiring specialists to take it on. Vitality took Shahar “flameZ” Shushan and turned him into the best entry in fashionable CS, however in Spirit, the place donk’s rifle capacity is the one factor centered on, there isn’t any consideration given to the participant doing essentially the most thankless function.
It was hoped that this may change with Boris “magixx” Vorobiev taking up the IGL function, and to some extent, it has. In his ultimate three months as Spirit’s chief, Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov’s entry rating on HLTV was 53, whereas magixx’s since returning to the lively lineup is 67. These scores, though not at all times dependable for viewing a participant’s proficiency inside a job, present their tendency to do this function, and Magixx’s is way nearer to what you’d count on within the fashionable meta.
The issue is that the change hasn’t eliminated the existence of the doom function in Spirit’s system. The rise in magixx’s rating is a results of his 33.1% opening deaths traded proportion, not of bombsite entrying. That function has now been handed off to fellow returning star Myrsolav “zont1x” Plakhotia, whose 2025 entry rating of 29 has shot as much as 40, whereas his 2025 T aspect score has nosedived from 1.05 to 0.84.
That is one other instance of horrendous misprofiling by Spirit and their coach, Sergey “hally” Shavaev, besides it ought to be much more apparent that it wouldn’t work with zont1x. The Ukrainian is known for his seeming lack of ability to land headshots, along with his 38.4% in 2025 extra consistent with AWPers than rifles. Hitting headshots is a crucial capacity for aggressive gamers, one which passive gamers can nearly cope with out because of their tendency to catch gamers with their backs turned.
Restricted System
After we interviewed Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg on the StarLadder Budapest Main, one factor he picked up on was over-reliance on Danil “donk” Kryshkovets in Spirit’s system.
“Chopper and hally have a really distinctive, however really fairly enviable drawback the place they’ve the very best opener on this planet,” he mentioned. “Meaning they need to use him and set him up, however as a result of they do this, they’ve ended up counting on him an excessive amount of.”
Whereas it’s comprehensible that hally would look to depend on a participant as efficient as donk, it additionally doesn’t should be that manner, and a greater coach would depend on it. In Dmitri “sh1ro” Sokolov, Spirit have among the best AWPers on this planet, and in Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich, additionally they have a lurker able to being a star for many groups on this planet. A stronger system would utilise these gamers to their fullest potential, relatively than attempting to pressure all of it by way of donk.
“A lot of their kind depends upon whether or not donk performs at an otherworldly stage,” Mauisnake defined. “They don’t even want too many fallbacks, however they’re additionally probably not essentially the most well-rounded workforce. After they run what’s a extra normal spherical, getting extra map management by way of a default with a ending execute, then it feels such as you’re stifling donk, so sending him to an apparent loss of life in a spherical when Spirit additionally doesn’t have essentially the most exact flashes won’t be optimum.”
Now that we’ve seen Spirit with and with out chopper, and Zweih with and with out Spirit, it’s onerous to not come to the conclusion that that is then the fault of hally. Hally has arguably the best ever participant to the touch Counter-Strike at his disposal, and among the best AWPers, too, but regardless of that, as different groups look to unfold their firepower throughout their 5 gamers, Spirit have failed to achieve something near the dominance of Vitality in 2025, and even NAVI in 2024.
As time goes on, it appears like this will solely be a results of hally’s too-rigid system. Zweih has to this point thrived in PARIVISION, along with his numbers again to the place they had been with Nemiga. In the meantime, Spirit have struggled to get previous a poor tier-two workforce in SINNERS and suffered an underdog defeat by the hands of PARIVISION. This has to vary as Spirit look to carry extra trophies in an try and maintain their star man completely satisfied, and though he could also be (for some purpose) revered, hally is perhaps the subsequent determine on the chopping block to ensure that that to occur.
