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It’s not often you see Danil “donk” Kryshkovets have an off day. The 2024 Player of the Year has built a reputation for dismantling teams almost single-handedly, but against G2, that streak of dominance finally hit a speed bump.

donk came into the BLAST Bounty Season 2 match riding a personal best, 29 maps in a row with a 1.00+ rating. That’s nearly 11 months without a bad performance on the scoreboard. But on this day, G2’s game plan (whether intentional or not) shut him down, handing him back-to-back negative-rated maps for the first time this year.

Even donk himself was surprised.

G2’s Plan That Wasn’t Supposed to Be

While it might have looked like G2 had cracked the code to stop donk, coach Eetu “sAw” Saha insisted it wasn’t a targeted shutdown. Instead, they tweaked their approach, avoiding Mid early on, which naturally limited donk’s impact. “It wasn’t targeted at him, it was overall the team, and it was just the game plan we chose for this match,” sAw explained after the series.

Intentional or not, it worked. For most of the first two maps, donk couldn’t find his usual groove, and G2 were on the verge of pulling off an upset against the IEM Cologne champions.

Spirit Still Find a Way

But here’s the thing about Spirit, they’re not a one-man team. Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov, Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia, and Ivan “zweih” Gogin all stepped up when it mattered most.

The series kicked off on Mirage, where G2 started strong and put Spirit’s defence under real pressure. Spirit only scraped two of the first nine rounds, but key triples from zont1x and zweih kept them alive. A late push saw Spirit claw back to take the map 13-11, even with donk posting his first negative rating in eight months.

On Ancient, G2 hit back hard. Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač led the charge, and G2’s defence punished Spirit’s site hits again and again. The result? A 13-7 win for G2 and donk finishing with just a 0.84 rating, a rare sight for the star rifler.

That left it all to be decided on Dust2. While donk’s struggles continued, sh1ro and zont1x kept delivering in clutch moments. Álvaro “SunPayus” García and Matúš “MATYS” Šimko put up a fight for G2, but Spirit’s pistols broke the game open early in the second half. From there, they ran away with it, sealing a 13-7 win and locking in their place at the BLAST Bounty Finals.

The Bigger Picture

For G2, it was a gamble to challenge Spirit, their first meeting since losing NiKo and m0NESY, and they came dangerously close to making it pay off. For Spirit, it’s a reminder that even when their superstar has an off day, they have the depth to get the job done.

As for donk? If history’s anything to go by, this blip won’t last long. But it’s proof that even the game’s most consistent fraggers aren’t untouchable.