Spirit overcome Luminosity to stay alive in Paris

Luminosity had it in their hands to force a decider, but could not finish off Dust2 with two map points.

donk led his team with a 1.60 rating in the series Spirit have survived their first bout in the Esports World Cup 2026 group stage lower bracket with a 2-0 victory over Luminosity , who are out in last place, with victories on Ancient (13-3) and Dust2 (19-16).

The Russian squad bounced back after an unexpected opening-day best-of-one loss to JiJieHao , and move on to the Group A lower-bracket semi-final where they will face BIG or G2 on Saturday.

The series kicked off on Ancient, Luminosity 's pick, but the map was never contested, as Spirit got off to an early lead and didn't let go throughout, with Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets winning several big clutches while the Lucas "⁠lux⁠" Meneghini -led squad only managed to win three rounds on the attack.

Spirit then took it with four quick rounds on the attack, and donk 's heroics in the stomp were rewarded with a 2.08 rating and +15.07% round swing.

donk clutches 1v3

The second map was a far cry from the first, as Luminosity won the CT pistol round and took the lead early. Spirit didn't let up the pressure and tied it up four rounds in, a tie that stood until the switch.

Spirit broke ahead first in the second half, but Luminosity clawed their way back. Luminosity 's biggest moment to tie it up came against four pistols and an AWP, but they ran straight into A, and a Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov triple kept Spirit ahead.

Luminosity run into sh1ro's AWP in crucial round

Despite losing the crucial round to sh1ro 's AWP, Luminosity forced overtime and even had two map points of their own to force a decider before Spirit secured a second OT and went on to win it cleanly to close out the series.