Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia explained why Spirit never managed to build a long period of dominance despite winning some of the biggest tournaments in Counter-Strike. Speaking to BLAST during BLAST Open Porto 2026, he pointed to the young age of the roster and said former captain Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov had different motivations compared to himself and Danil “donk” Kryshkovets.
Spirit arrived in Porto after winning Esports World Cup 2026 and are now trying to secure consecutive trophies for the first time with the current roster.
chopper was focused on specific career goals
zont1x said one of the reasons Spirit struggled to maintain the same level across several tournaments was the difference in motivation inside the roster. According to him, chopper wanted to achieve specific goals such as winning a Major rather than building a long streak of trophies.
We were still young; that’s the first thing. Second thing: we had chopper, who is not really, I would say, that motivated to dominate the CS scene. He had certain goals, like winning a Major, for example. And because of those certain goals, it wasn’t like he didn’t care, but he was not that motivated to win six tournaments in a row.
zont1x stressed that he does not see that mentality as a major problem. Spirit were often at their strongest at the tournaments chopper wanted to win most.
People are different. It’s not that big of a problem, I would say. Because he wanted to win a Major or Cologne, and we were in the best shape in Cologne or the Major. Because I’m, like, 21 years old, and I have won a Major, Cologne and Katowice. I achieved everything with chopper and the team.
He even suggested that the motivation of chopper for those specific events may have helped Spirit win major trophies so early.
zont1x and donk want to win as much as possible
zont1x described his own mentality as different. He does not have one specific tournament that would represent the main goal of his career and believes donk approaches competition in a similar way.
I don’t have a particular goal of winning a Major or anything else. I’m just trying to win as much as I can, and that’s pretty much it. So yeah, I would say I have quite a different mentality when it comes to this. I think it’s quite similar to what donk has, because he doesn’t care either; he just wants to win as much as he can.
For zont1x, that mentality becomes especially important when trying to win several tournaments in a row rather than peaking for one particular championship.
Spirit need to keep progressing to dominate
zont1x believes maintaining the same level is not enough once a team reaches the top. Opponents begin studying the strongest roster more closely, forcing it to constantly adjust.
In order to win, for example, five championships in a row, you have to be able to not only hold your shape — individual or team shape — but you always have to progress. Because as soon as you take the top spot, everyone starts to look at your game, and you have to evolve all the time.
He admitted Spirit are still not playing their best Counter-Strike, but believes maintaining motivation and continuing to develop are more important for long-term success.
zont1x is not ready to call Spirit the best team
Despite recent results, zont1x does not believe Spirit have shown enough consistency to clearly call themselves the best team in the world.
We don’t have that sustainable performance, and we don’t have those significant results yet. Even though, if you look at our last five or six championships and take the average place, we are probably by far the best team in those statistics.
He pointed to losses against JiJieHao and MOUZ and a close series against BIG as examples of the inconsistency that still exists.
If we win this tournament, you could say that we are the best team. But then we have one month of not playing championships. So when we come to Katowice, would we still be able to say that we are the best team? We will have to regain shape, we will have to play again, and teams will adapt to us in that month.
zont1x contrasted Spirit with Vitality, who previously built their claim through a much longer run of consecutive tournament victories.
S0tF1k has reduced the workload of hally
zont1x also spoke about the current Spirit coaching structure with Sergey “hally” Shavaev and Andrey “S0tF1k” Afanasyev. He believes hally has benefited the most from the addition because responsibilities can now be divided between several people.
I think the main person who benefits from it is hally himself, because he has much more energy and time to do something in particular and do it with full energy. I think that S0tF1k just helps; he’s taking a part of the job that hally was doing before.
According to zont1x, Spirit should have introduced a larger support structure earlier, especially with other top organizations already using analysts, assistant coaches and additional staff.
Spirit will continue their BLAST Open Porto 2026 run against Falcons in the semi-finals on September 5.
