BLAST Premier Spring Groups Dark Horses

BLAST Premier Spring Groups brings together 16 teams but divides them into four groups that will be played independently of each other. So in every group, there will be a a winner and a runner-up.

The winner is likely to be the strongest team. However, there is a high chance that at least some of the groups will end up having a dark horse, or a team that advances to the play-in stage. Or, why not, even win and qualify for BLAST Premier Spring Final directly.

Group A

In group A, the biggest favorite is Team Vitality. Normally, Astralis should finish second or perhaps even win if Vitality make enough mistakes.

But there’s a third team that could cause an upset. Team Falcons signed Vitality’s coach, zonic, as well as one of their players, Magisk. After knocking on many doors, they also managed to sign SunPayus from ENCE. So now they are strong enough to challenge the likes of Astralis and perhaps even Vitality.

Group B

In group B, FaZe Clan and Team Liquid have much stronger rosters than GamerLegion and Team Spirit. But both of them have made roster changes recently, so it’s not yet clear that they can be more than the sum of their parts. A lot of work needs to be done to create a cohesive lineup in both cases, and especially in Liquid’s case.

This provides an excellent opportunity for Spirit, who now have Dmitriy “sh1ro” Sokolov on their roster.

Our teams may be fighting for a spot at the Spring Final next week, but you don’t have to!

Grab your tickets for the Spring Final in London on the 14th-16th of June 🇬🇧

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— BLAST Premier 💥 (@BLASTPremier) January 19, 2024

Group C

In group C, G2 and Natus Vincere are supposed to crush everyone else with ease, but both Ninjas in Pyjamas and Complexity have the potential to be dark horses. In Complexity’s case, we clearly saw last year how good they can be when everything clicks. The potential for greatness is there, but under the pressure of big tournaments they often collapse.

In NiP’s case, the signing of ALEX, who is now the new IGL, might have improved their performance dramatically. We don’t know yet how good there are because they’ve only played three matches this year. But they might be pretty good. Otherwise it’s hard to explain their recent 15 – 19, 10 – 13 defeat against Astralis. The scores were very close.

Group D

In group D of BLAST Premier Spring Groups, Cloud9 and Virtus.pro are supposed to be the big favorites. But BIG have an excellent roster and might end up stealing VP’s spot.

They probably can’t beat Cloud9, because the NA team has been played very well in recent months. But VP are beatable, despite their number 5 position in the global rankings.

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