Team Spirit beat FUT 3-1 to win CS2 Esports World Cup as donk claims MVP

Team Spirit have won the Counter-Strike 2 title at the Esports World Cup 2026 after defeating FUT Esports 3-1 in the grand final, with Danil “donk” Kryshkovets completing another dominant tournament to secure the MVP award.

Team Spirit finished their Esports World Cup 2026 campaign with the Counter-Strike 2 trophy after beating FUT Esports 3-1 in the best-of-five grand final on August 23. Spirit recovered from losing the opening map to take the series 10-13 on Cache, 16-13 on Anubis, 16-14 on Ancient and 13-5 on Nuke. The victory earned the team $600,000 from the tournament’s $2 million prize pool.

FUT provided a much tougher challenge than the final score suggests. Playing in their first Big Event grand final, the team opened the series by taking Cache 13-10 and then pushed Spirit into overtime on both Anubis and Ancient. Spirit survived those two close maps before taking complete control of Nuke, building a 10-2 first-half lead and closing the championship with a comfortable 13-5 victory.

The title completed an impressive playoff run for Spirit. They defeated B8 2-0 in the round of 16 before facing Vitality in one of the tournament’s most important series. Spirit won that quarter-final 2-1, ending a six-match losing streak against Vitality that had stretched back to 2024. They then beat surprise semifinalist Legacy 2-0 to reach the final.

The victory over Vitality was particularly significant. After taking Anubis 13-11 and losing Nuke 14-16 in overtime, Spirit dominated the Mirage decider 13-3. donk led the series with a 1.46 rating, helping Spirit overcome one of the opponents that had repeatedly stopped them in major events over the previous two seasons.

FUT’s run was one of the other major stories of the tournament. The European lineup defeated MOUZ 2-0 in the quarter-finals and then survived a three-map semifinal against FURIA, winning the Dust2 decider 16-13 in overtime. Reaching the final represented FUT’s first appearance in the championship match of a Big Event.

Individual honours went to Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, who was named the tournament MVP after finishing the event with a 1.50 rating. He did not record a single map below a 1.00 rating and was the highest-rated player on eight maps. The award is donk’s second MVP medal of 2026 and the 12th of his career. In the grand final alone, he produced 88 kills and a 1.36 rating across the four maps.

For Spirit, the EWC trophy is their second major tournament victory of 2026 following their triumph at PGL Astana in May. It also provides an important response after a more inconsistent summer that included a semifinal exit at the Cologne Major and defeat to MOUZ in the BLAST Bounty Summer final.

Spirit therefore leave the Esports World Cup with both the championship and another standout individual performance from donk. FUT, despite falling short in the final, also emerged as one of the tournament’s biggest surprises. With established contenders such as Vitality, Falcons and MOUZ eliminated before the title match, the EWC playoffs underlined how competitive the top level of Counter-Strike has become heading into the final months of the 2026 season.