BLAST Premier 2023 Spring Groups: Teams to watch

The wait for the 2023 CS:GO season is over, as BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023 finally started today. Here’s the list of teams you want to keep an eye on! 

Some of the teams look stronger than the rest, and some have undergone dramatic changes that simply cannot be ignored. Read on for more details on each of the teams worth keeping an eye on.

Heroic

Who should be watched first of all, if not the current number one team in the world? Of course, we are talking about Heroic, the Fall Final 2022 Champions. The Danes will finally play with their full lineup, as Martin “stavn” Lund has allegedly solved his issues and is ready to help his team again. It will definitely be interesting to watch Heroic’s strategies, and knowing Kasper “cadiaN” Muller, they will have some of the most unexpected ones.

Astralis

Let’s move on to another Danish squad Astralis, who have gone through one of the most difficult seasons in their history in 2022. However, their legendary sniper Nikolai “dev1ce” Reedts has returned now, and everybody’s curious how the new season is going to play out for Astralis with dev1ce back. For the 27-year-old Dane, this will be the first LAN tournament after returning, so this is a good reason to watch Astralis for new highlights from one of the most titled players in CS:GO.

FaZe Clan

Not only will FaZe Clan play without one of their star players — Howard “rain” Nygaard, but the coach Robert “RobbaN” Dahlström, will also be absent. Rain dropped out of the event due to the expected birth of his child, while the coach is said to return to his activities at the next IEM Katowice tournament.

It will be interesting to see how the best team of last year will cope with such difficulties, and who they will take to replace rain. Could they use Olofmeister? In this situation, you definitely shouldn’t miss their games, because it’s not every day you see such legends at work.

Natus Vincere

The whole community looks forward to seeing how the Ukrainian team got used to the game with Andriy “npl” Kukharsky. For the former NAVI Academy player, this will be a full-fledged debut with the main NAVI squad. The player was allowed to play several maps at BLAST World Final 2022, where he did not perform that well. However, Blad3 still bet on him rather than sdy, so this debut will be interesting to watch.

G2 Esports

Discovery Player of the Year, the third Best Player of the Year, Champions of BLAST Premier World Final 2022 — in a nutshell, why you need to keep an eye on G2 in Spring Groups.

In the course of 2022, the team looked extremely unstable, but after winning the BLAST World Final 2022, it seems that G2 have found their game, largely thanks to the discovery of Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, as well as the best open-fragger and third in the list of the best players of the year, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

NIP are worth watching because of Daniil “headtr1ck” Valitov. The 18-year-old Ukrainian sniper is one of the most promising player on the entire CS:GO scene right now and many are betting that this year he will receive a title similar to that received by m0NESY this year. So you have a unique opportunity to watch the formation of a possible future superstar.