Spirit beat NAVI to reach the IEM Cologne 2025 grand final

Spirit beat NAVI to reach the IEM Cologne 2025 grand final

Team Spirit booked their first-ever IEM Cologne grand final with a 2–1 victory over Natus Vincere on August 2, 2025, extending their head‑to‑head streak to four straight series wins against Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen’s side. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets led the way with a standout Mirage (1.50 rating) as Spirit took the opener 13–11, weathered a heavy defeat on Nuke 9–13, and then closed the series on Ancient 13–6 after racing to a 10–0 T‑side start. Key moments included donk’s ace on Mirage and a late NAVI lifeline via Drin “makazze” Shaqiri’s 2v4 on Nuke, but the deficit on Ancient proved insurmountable. Map scores: Mirage 13–11, Nuke 9–13, Ancient 13–6. Top series ratings: donk 1.42; Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy 1.11. 

The win set up a Sunday title match against MOUZ, who had upset Vitality 2–0 in the other semi‑final, snapping Vitality’s 37‑series win streak and seven‑trophy run. MOUZ prevailed on Mirage and Train to reach the final. 

In the grand final a day later, Spirit swept MOUZ 3–0 to lift the Cologne trophy—completing a rare trifecta of IEM Katowice, a Major, and IEM Cologne in the same year. donk was awarded the event MVP.