The current The International (TI) winner, Team Spirit, has been eliminated from the Elite League 2024 after an underwhelming performance. With its capacity to persevere in such circumstances and its recent 2-0 win over OG, the squad looked ready for a comeback. However, Spirit's bad play persisted as they lost 2-0 to PSG Quest. Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk rarely loses when it comes to carry matches, but that particular day, Quest's Aybek "TA2000" Tokayev crushed Spirit. After 12 games, the team has three wins and one series remaining.

Spirit leaves Elite League 2024 early due to poor performance

Spirit began their Elite League season with an unexpected loss versus Heroic while they were in Group A. The squad received an early warning sign when Heroic's win proved to be one-sided. 

Even in the first game of the series, Spirit showed that it could compete, and a 1-1 draw with the Falcons—the greatest team of the year—seemed to have settled things.

Spirit's confidence and momentum were undoubtedly affected by the series against Entity, though, since the team lost both games by narrow scores. The team had leads in networth and kill score in both games at different points in the game, but it was unable to hold onto the advantage and faltered in the closing moments.

The following game, a 2-0 loss against G2.iG made matters worse, making it very challenging to make it to the postseason. In the first game, Spirit was run over, and in the second, it had a lead but blew it. 

Spirit was obviously having trouble, yet it managed to defeat OG in the first game of the series with a narrow victory. Yatoro showed off his beast side against Anti Mage in the second game. It posted an incredible 26-1-12 KDA to ultimately give his squad a 2-0 victory.

After coming out on top in the opening game thanks to some outstanding play by Yatoro, Spirit's two series victories that were necessary to advance in the competition seemed less difficult at that point. At this point, Spirit's position four player, Myroslav "Mira" Kolpakov, said that the squad needed to exercise more discipline to avoid blowing early leads in order to simply go back on track.

But in the subsequent series, Spirit was outmatched by Quest, falling 2-0, and was knocked out of the competition. 

Spirit's competitive season in 2024 has not started off smoothly. Despite the journey's ups and downs thus far, the inability to qualify for DreamLeague Season 23 a few weeks ago has been a significant setback.

Spirit only has one series remaining in Elite League 2024 versus Azure Ray. The team's performance in this tournament is among its worst in an international competition since its unexpected early elimination from The International 2022, where it placed 13th–16th.