Spirit have secured a place at the WESG 2019 Global Finals after besting FORZE 2-1 at the Russian Finals, in Kirov.

The WESG Russia Finals solely featured the duo of FORZE and Spirit, with the former having received a direct invitation to the decisive showdown, while the latter had to fight their way through the closed qualifier, in which they ultimately defeated Gambit Youngsters to set up a matchup with Andrey "⁠Jerry⁠" Mekhryakov's squad.

The grand final clash demonstrated the offensive prowess of both sides as the Russian squads traded each other’s map picks with dominant T sides, which resulted in FORZE winning out Mirage 16-12 and Spirit securing Inferno with the same scoreline. Spirit carried over their momentum to the decider, Nuke, where they stormed to a 12-3 lead on the Terrorist side. The score difference proved too large for FORZE, however, as the series was soon closed out by Spirit, 16-9.

Spirit have locked down a spot at the WESG 2019 Global Finals

The defeat to a team ranked 15 places below them in the world rankings is the latest disappointing result from FORZE, who last week had crashed out of DreamHack Open Anaheim in 7th-8th place following defeats to North and Endpoint.

It is currently unknown when and where the WESG Global Finals will be played out, with the original March date believed to have been postponed amid the outbreak of the coronavirus. The Asia-Pacific and the Latin America qualifiers have already been postponed indefinitely because of the virus.

The list of participants for the WESG Finals currently looks as follows:

HEROIC
Endpoint
Illuminar
Chaos
Nemiga
Ground Zero
Lynn Vision
BTRG
Latin America
/Asia-Pacific
Invited
Invited North
Movistar Riders
LiViD
Juggernauts
Spirit
Viva Algeria
Energy
Latin America
Latin America
/Asia-Pacific
Invited
Invited FORZE #13 Dmitriy 'facecrack' AlekseyevAlmaz 'almazer' AsadullinEvgenii 'FL1T' LebedevBogdan 'xsepower' ChernikovAndrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov Andrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov Age: 21 Team: FORZE Rating 1.0: 1.01 Maps played: 760 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.68 HEROIC #14 Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferCasper 'cadiaN' MøllerPatrick 'es3tag' HansenJohannes 'b0RUP' BorupMartin 'stavn' Lund Endpoint #35 Robin 'robiin' SjögrenJoey 'CRUC1AL' SteuselMax 'MiGHTYMAX' HeathKia 'Surreal' ManThomas 'Thomas' Utting Ground Zero #113 Callum 'BURNRUOk' HendersonAndy 'Noobster' ZhangCooper 'void' FarrellLuke 'Llamas' MerchantJoel 'PEARSS' Kurta Viva Algeria Nabil 'natsu' BadiDylan 'nOxii' Saadi Spirit #28 Leonid 'chopper' VishnyakovNikolay 'mir' BityukovViktor 'sdy' OrudzhevArtem 'iDISBALANCE' EgorovBoris 'magixx' Vorobiev Energy Trevor 'kanii' MorleyShaun 'TheM4N' DeyzelNico 'Dweezil' Devonport Juggernauts #47 Dimitrije 'DiMKE' VeljkovićMiloš 'dEE' MarčetaFilip 'aVN' BelojicaAleksa 'Impulse' StankićNemanja 'sarenii' Šarenac Movistar Riders #36 Christian 'loWel' Garcia AntoranRajohn 'EasTor' LinatoLucas 'steel' LopesAlejandro 'alex' MasanetAlejandro 'mopoz' Fernández-Quejo Cano North #25 René 'cajunb' BorgMathias 'MSL' LauridsenPhilip 'aizy' AistrupMarkus 'Kjaerbye' KjærbyeNicklas 'gade' Gade Chaos #54 Joshua 'steel' NissanOwen 'smooya' ButterfieldAnthony 'vanity' MalaspinaCameron 'cam' KernBen 'ben1337' Smith Nemiga #51 Aleksandr 'mds' RubetsRassim 'Jyo' ValijevAnton 'speed4k' TitovAnton 'boX' BurkoIgor 'lollipop21k' Solodkov Lynn Vision #84 YuFan 'Yvonne' GuoZhe 'Westmelon' NiuZhen 'Aree' LongSike 'z4kr' ZhangZhouxing 'XinKoiNg' Cai LiViD #108 Abdo 'c4Lypso' AghaMathieu 'INCRED' BergeronAnthony 'gMd' GuimondDanny 'huynh' HuynhMichael 'MkaeL' De Luca BTRG #64 Hyun-Pyo 'XigN' LeeAnthony 'ImpressioN' LimKevin 'xccurate' SusantoShun-Hei 'HeiB' HoZhiWei 'zWin' Li Illuminar #45 Paweł 'innocent' MocekPaweł 'reatz' JańczakMichał 'mono' Gabszewicz Gambit Youngsters #37 Timofey 'interz' YakushinAnton 'supra' TšernobaiSergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovDmitry 'sh1ro' SokolovVladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov