BLAST Bounty day three recap: Spirit cling on to life at BLAST Bounty

Spirit survived an almighty scare to muscle past OG and stay alive in BLAST Bounty.

cadiaN and adamb powered OG to an unlikely deciding map with a stellar performance on Dust 2, but when Spirit raced into a 9-3 lead on Ancient it seemed all but over.

OG somehow managed to claw their way back into an Ancient map that looked dead and buried once more thanks to adamb, who looked like an absolute superstar, finding multikills where even one was impressive. Spirit were sloppy for large portions of their T side, epitomised by the third round of OT. An overextension left them 4v5, but some great work from sh1ro pulled them back into the round.

With a 4v3 and the A site under control, it seemed once more out of reach, but pr1metapz found two through the smoke that got blown up, and somehow OG found themselves ahead in OT.

Sadly, they failed to close it out, and were swiftly punished. You can't give sh1ro and donk two extra chances at this level. Spirit survived, but by the skin of their teeth on Ancient, against an OG team who didn't even look that good outside of one player.

We wrote a standalone piece linked below about this one, but we still have to mention that Aurora fell short against FOKUS in a pretty troubling first showing for the new roster.

Usual caveats apply, of course, but the two new lads finished bottom of the scoreboard as Aurora slipped to defeat over three maps, including a demolition job on Dust 2.

When woxic is losing on Dust 2, you know there's problems.

We're obviously not ready to write this roster off based on one online game, but it would have been a bit more encouraging if we hadn't seen them totally capitulate on the third map.

FUT came from behind in the series to close out a win over SINNERS with new addition xfl0ud really looking the part.

lauNx was maybe a little hard done by to be removed from this team given how well he had been playing, but xfl0ud already seems to be filling his shoes with some pretty big feet. He was a force of nature on Ancient in particular, winning seemingly every duel that presented itself.

Again, not time to make sweeping conclusions, but we just like how this team was moving with a new addition, who looked like he'd been in the team as long as anyone else. It just felt right.

paiN moved past a relatively uninspiring Gentle Mates to claim their spot in the round of 16.

This was one of those games that just happens without anything in particular that sticks in the memory.

Well, bar one naughty 1v4 from saffee in the Nuke pistol, which was pretty special - but that also went to show quite how lost in the sauce Gentle Mates were on that map. paiN racked up eight T rounds and Gentle Mates truly had no answer to them.

Their sheer lack of firepower that is so often covered up by the power of friendship was on full display here, as they just lacked the muscle to take and win the necessary duels.