In what may prove to be the most one sided final of first half of 2021, Spirit hammered FunPlus Phoenix straight for 3-0 on the Europe side of the DreamHack Open January event.

Despite FunPlus X up to this point proving a steady and reliable team, they couldn't hold out again Spirit to really any degree.

Across just 3 maps in what was a best of five final, we visited just Dust2, Nuke & Mirage, before the victor of the $35,000 prize came through.

Spirit's performance is especially dominating when looking into the statistics, with all of Spirit achieving a positive K-D ratio, whilst all of FunPlus Phoenix achieved negative ratios. 

The Russian side wasted no time in setting the pace in the final, ending Nuke 16-6, Dust2 16-7 and finally Mirage 16-8. In all of the matches, FPX performed much better on the first half, before losing traction completely on switch. On Dust2, it was 9-6 to Spirit, with FunPlus getting just a single extra round on the CT side. The story continued much the same on Nuke, at swap over, Spirit were 10-5 up, and ending on 16-6, with FunPlus once more only getting a single extra round. FPX did, to a small degree do better on Mirage however, ending 10-5 against FPX, they managed 3 further rounds for the final score of 16-8. 

FunPlus Phoenix, which is comprised of the 'GODSENT' team now under a new banner, plus the addition of chrisJ, under loan from mousesports, who acts as the in-game leader. So all the players are seasoned and familiar with top tier CSGO matches. It really is a disappointing performance from them, with FunPlus X probably going away from this disheartened and full of questions to answer before their next event, which is still to be determined for them, having not made it to the Katowice play-ins or season 13 of Pro League.

En route to the final, FunPlus took down HellRaisers, Gambit & Evil Geniuses, so they can take some comfort in knowing they took down the former #1 team of Evil Geniuses. Spirit meanwhile conquered forZe, Sprout, and also a former #1 team, BIG. Giving both teams suitably difficult matches to earn their places in the Grand Final.