Team Spirit knocks out G2

Team Spirit knocked G2 Esports out of Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2026 with a 2-0 win on April 15, moving on to the playoffs. (hltv.org) The match was the Group A lower-bracket final, a best-of-three in which the winner reached the quarterfinals and the loser went home. Spirit won Mirage 13-7 and Dust2 13-11. (hltv.org) Andrey "tN1R" Tatarinovich led Spirit with a 1.57 rating across the two maps, while Boris "magixx" Vorobiev posted 1.45 and Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov finished at 1.18. HLTV listed tN1R as player of the match. (hltv.org) IEM Rio 2026 is a 16-team Counter-Strike 2 event with a $1 million prize pool at Farmasi Arena in Rio de Janeiro. ESL says the tournament started on April 13, and the arena stage runs from April 17 to April 19. (pro.eslgaming.com) The format gives each of the two groups eight teams in a double-elimination bracket, with three teams from each group advancing. The six-team playoff bracket is single elimination, with best-of-three matches until the best-of-five grand final. (pro.eslgaming.com) That made the G2-Spirit series a cutoff match: Spirit stayed alive long enough to reach the live-arena portion, and G2's run ended before the playoff weekend began on April 17. (hltv.org) (pro.eslgaming.com) The event is drawing a large online audience as it moves into playoffs. Esports Charts said the Rio group stage peaked at 820,000 concurrent viewers in a report published April 16. (escharts.com) Rio has become a regular Counter-Strike stop for ESL, which called 2026 the tournament's fourth return to the city after skipping 2025. ESL tied this year's edition to its ESL Pro Tour Masters circuit and the ESL Grand Slam race. (pro.eslgaming.com) Spirit now moves from a survival match into the quarterfinals, while G2 leaves Rio after failing to get through the last elimination series in Group A. (hltv.org)