s1mple chastises Katowice crowd for making callouts against Spirit
A significant portion of the crowd at IEM Katowice tried to aid NAVI by calling out where Spirit were heading during the semifinals.
During a 1v2 in the 19th round of Mirage, the crowd could clearly be heard shouting "B" as Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov was heading through apartments. It was evident that both NAVI players couldn't hear them though, as they remained in Window and Jungle and were keeping a keen eye on the A site. Ultimately, sh1ro would win the round anyway, with Spirit taking the series 2-0.
NAVI legend Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyljev was among many online who criticized the crowd for their actions. "Hey crowd. don’t make me angry," he wrote on X. "I’m 2 [hour] drive from you, stop giving positions, you help not only "your" team but opposite as well." During the round, the Twitch chat was flooded with "L CROWD" and similar messages.
Following the round, discussion about the incident spread online. In response to caster Jason "moses" O'Toole saying there was a "0% chance" the players heard it, Vitality's Robin "ropz" Kool said players could "in theory" hear info from the crowd during a quiet moment in comms.
Still, the crowd interference did little to nothing to hinder Spirit from winning the round or the series. They move on to play Vitality in the grand final tomorrow at 11:00AM.
