Spirit, Aurora notch second straight wins at BLAST Slam III playoffs

Team Spirit and Aurora Gaming survived and advanced for the second straight day in the BLAST Slam III playoff stage on Thursday in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In Round 2, Spirit outlasted PARIVISION 2-1 and Aurora defeated Xtreme Gaming by the same score. Spirit and Aurora started the stage in Round 1, where they won their opening matches Wednesday.

The $1 million Dota 2 tournament began with a single-day group stage featuring two round-robin groups of five teams apiece. All matches were best-of-one. The top teams received byes into the semifinals, the second-place finishers were seeded into the quarterfinals, the third-place teams were seeded into Round 2 and the fourth- and fifth-place teams were placed into Round 1.

The playoff stage will run through Sunday in a single-elimination bracket. All matches are best-of-three until Sunday's best-of-five grand final.

On Thursday, Spirit opened with a marathon 78-minute victory on green before PARIVISION countered with a 33-minute triumph on green. Spirit prevailed in the do-or-die third map in 52 minutes, again on green. Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk of Ukraine averaged a 12.0-3.7-8.6 kills-deaths-assists ratio to pace Spirit.

Aurora sandwiched 36-minute and 64-minute victories on green around a 39-minute defeat on red. Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko of Russia led Aurora with an average K-D-A of 10.7-2.3-4.0.

The tournament continues Friday with two best-of-three quarterfinal matches:

--Team Tidebound vs. Team Spirit

--Gaimin Gladiators vs. Aurora Gaming

--Field Level Media