Danil “donk” Kryshkovets reflected on Spirit progress after the team defeated MOUZ 3:1 in the Grand Final of BLAST Open Porto 2026. Speaking to HLTV after the victory, donk explained why beating MOUZ mattered, how much Spirit have improved since their previous meeting and why staying at the top is now the main challenge.
Spirit secured their second consecutive tournament title after winning Esports World Cup 2026, while donk also claimed his third MVP award of the year.
The victory had additional meaning for Spirit because MOUZ were the only team among the current top opponents they had not beaten. MOUZ defeated Spirit in the BLAST Bounty Season 2 Grand Final earlier in the season.
Yeah, it’s an amazing feeling because it was the last team that we have not beaten yet. We’ve beaten all the top teams, the top seven I would say, and the only team that we didn’t beat was MOUZ.
donk stressed that Spirit did not feel frustrated after the previous loss. In his view, MOUZ deserved that victory because of the level they showed at the time.
Their victory over us at BLAST Bounty was well-deserved for them, they were grinding daily a lot and their new players are pretty sharp, so we didn’t feel ourselves frustrated after this loss. It was a deserved loss.
This time, the Grand Final was much more comfortable for Spirit. They won Dust2 13:8, lost Mirage 11:13, and then closed the series with dominant victories on Ancient 13:3 and Nuke 13:6.
According to donk, the main difference between the two meetings was the overall progress of Spirit rather than one specific adjustment.
Yeah, we were dominating all four maps. We just started to play much better, we’ve improved a lot as a team and basically that’s it.
He also admitted that Spirit had several issues during the earlier stage of the season that have since been addressed.
We were worse as a team back in those days, and we’ve improved a lot and fixed a lot of problems.
The Porto title followed the victory at Esports World Cup 2026, giving Spirit back-to-back championships for the first time during their current run.
Despite the recent success, donk is not ready to say Spirit have already reached their maximum level with Boris “magixx” Vorobiev as IGL.
We will see. The hardest part of being at the top is staying at the top, so we will see how we will perform after such victories.
Spirit will now have a break before their next tournament, and donk believes the performance after that period will give a clearer indication of how sustainable the current level really is.
We will see how we perform there, and then I think we can discuss.
The situation has therefore changed for Spirit. After proving they can win consecutive events, the next challenge is maintaining that level when opponents have more time to study and adapt to them.
donk also briefly explained why he once again did not lift the trophy after the final. When asked about it, he said he simply enjoys watching his teammates celebrate more.
