donk prevents Wildcard upset

Wildcard's first ever series in an ESL Pro League event was against one of the current best squads in the world, Spirit, but that didn't stop the North American organization from scaring the Russians.

Albeit the strong performance, Wildcard has been relegated to the lower bracket, where the team led by Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz will face 9z tomorrow.

Also read: ESEA introduces "Open10" Division, QOL improvements in latest update

The series kicked off with Ancient, picked by Wildcard, and it would be the NA team claiming the first three rounds on the T-side. Spirit climbed back, winning the first half 8-4. The CT-site would be much better for Wildcard, but Danil "donk" Kryshkovets put up a 38 kills performance which propelled Spirit to a 13-11 win.

Nuke was next, with Spirit taking control of the series, once again thanks to an amazing showing from donk. The Russians opened the map with an 8-1 lead and the first half ended with a 9-3 score. Wildcard managed to win the second-half pistol round and some more rounds on the T-side, even a force buy, making a comeback seem real. Wildcard even sent the map to overtime, but once there Spirit took the 16-13 win and closed the series.

Wildcard will face 9z tomorrow in the lower bracket. A loss will send the North American team to the Last Chance stage of ESL Pro League Season 20.

ESL Pro League Season 20

Bo3

Spirit

2 - 0

Wildcard

All maps

Spirit	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 2.0
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets	75 - 29	+46	131.3	79.2%	2.09
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia	27 - 33	-6	67.4	79.2%	1.09
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov	37 - 34	+3	63.6	66.0%	1.02
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev	29 - 37	-8	69.2	75.5%	0.95
Leonid 'chopper' Vishnyakov	26 - 36	-10	61.0	66.0%	0.84

Wildcard	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 2.0
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant	39 - 35	+4	77.9	69.8%	1.13
Tim 'susp' Ångström	37 - 42	-5	77.9	69.8%	1.00
Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguz	31 - 38	-7	67.4	67.9%	0.91
Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek	34 - 42	-8	77.6	54.7%	0.86
Josh 'JBa' Barutt	26 - 40	-14	58.5	58.5%	0.74