Virtus.pro completes furious rally to stay alive at BLAST Open Spring

Virtus.pro was one of four teams to advance through the lower-bracket semifinals Sunday and stay alive at the BLAST Open Spring event in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Three of the four matches were 2-0 sweeps: Team Spirit over FaZe Clan in Group A, and The MongolZ over Team Liquid and G2 Esports beating M80 in Group B.

Virtus.pro, however, went deep into overtime on their latter two maps to take down Team Falcons 2-1 and claw their way into the Group A lower-bracket final. Falcons opened with a 13-11 win on Mirage, but Virtus.pro answered with a 19-16 victory on Ancient and a 22-20 marathon win on Inferno.

Timur "FL4MUS" Marev of Russia led Virtus.pro with 75 kills on a plus-10 kills-deaths differential. Teammate and countryman Evgenii "FL1T" Lebedev had 66 kills on a team-best plus-13 differential. Abdul "degster" Gasanov of Russia was strong in defeat for Team Falcons (75 kills, plus-15).

The $400,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event began with the 16 teams divided into two groups for double-elimination play. The group winners move into the playoff semifinals, the group runners-up head to the quarterfinals as high seeds and the third-place teams in each group become the low seeds in the quarterfinals.

All group-stage matches are best-of-three.

The single-elimination playoffs, to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, begin this Friday. All playoff matches are best-of-three until the grand final on March 30, which will be best-of-five. The winning team will earn $150,000.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Team Spirit defeated FaZe Clan 13-8 on Anubis and 13-9 on Nuke. Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia of Ukraine (41 kills, plus-20 K-D) and Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov of Russia (40 kills, plus-22) starred for Spirit.

In Group B, The MongolZ bested Team Liquid 13-7 on Anubis and 13-8 on Ancient. Munkhbold "Senzu" Azbayar of Mongolia led the winners with 40 kills on a plus-11 K-D.

G2 Esports edged M80 13-9 on Ancient and 13-11 on Inferno. G2's Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov of Russia had a massive day with 53 kills and a plus-27 K-D.

The group stage concludes Monday with four matches:

--MOUZ vs. Team Vitality (Group A upper-bracket final)

--Virtus.pro vs. Team Spirit (Group A lower-bracket final)

--Eternal Fire vs. Natus Vincere (Group B upper-bracket final)

--The MongolZ vs. G2 Esports (Group B lower-bracket final)

BLAST Open Spring prize pool

1. $150,000

2. $60,000

3-4. $40,000

5-6. $20,000

7-8. $10,000

9-12. $7,500 -- Team Falcons, FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, M80

13-16. $5,000 -- The Huns Esports, Astralis, Imperial Esports, FURIA

--Field Level Media