M0NESY about Spirit: "Teams have started to prepare for their style"

G2 Esports sniper Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov shared his thoughts on Team Spirit’s performance at IEM Cologne 2024 in an interview with Paragon Events. He noted that the team, led by Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov, might have faced difficulties due to other teams preparing for their tactics.

"I think it's a normal phenomenon. Teams have started preparing for a team that was dominating strongly. Danila 'donk' was... really strong. Teams began preparing for their play style, started countering their actions on the map, and it’s becoming harder and harder for them to play. But I believe that after such a loss and being eliminated from the tournament, they will regroup, correct their mistakes, and come back stronger.

Honestly, I don't know if Spirit is having trouble adapting to counter-strategies. We don’t know their internal dynamics or how they interact within the team. We know how they play, but not how they communicate internally. However, I think that teams are just preparing against them, and maybe some of their plays and actions aren’t working as well as before.

When you’re the best team in the world, like Astralis was, you set the standard, and your style gets copied. Everything you come up with gets copied. A team of that high level doesn’t need to copy other styles—they develop their style of play. Teams started copying Astralis’ style, and they began preparing more and more for it and started defeating them. Spirit still plays great, and they deserve respect. Next time, they’ll be stronger."

Team Spirit finished 13th-16th at IEM Cologne 2024, losing to The Mongolz and G2 Esports in Group A. Later, m0NESY’s team defeated Astralis and paiN Gaming to secure a spot in the tournament’s playoffs.