BLAST Premier Spring Groups Day 7 recap

The group stage of the 2023 BLAST Premier Spring Groups is nearing its conclusion with only two more games remaining.

A stunning 2-1 victory over Heroic on the seventh day of the competition allowed the French-Danish team Vitality to clinch the first spot at the 2023 BLAST Premier Spring Finals. The second CS:GO match between Natus Vincere and Ninjas in Pyjamas in Group C played out much like their previous encounter.

Vitality upset Heroic to clinch the BLAST Spring Finals spot

Vitality becomes the first team from the 2023 BLAST Premier Spring Groups to punch their ticket at the $425,000 Spring Finals after a victory over Heroic. Vitality started their map pick of Miage in strong fashion as a combined effort from Mathieu “⁠ZywOo⁠” Herbaut and IGL Peter “⁠dupreeh⁠” Rasmussen boosted the team to a 16-11 victory. 

Heroic succeeded in breaching the Vitality roster’s defenses on Nuke, where they convincingly crushed them 16-13 to cap their comeback. Vitality started the decisive map in hot form, shutting down the Heroics’ assaults with ease to close the map 16-18. Heroic now has to punch their ticket to the BLAST Spring Finals through the knockout stage, where they will face the winner of the BIG and Team Liquid match in the second round.

NAVI smash NIP again to reach the Group C Final

Natus Vincere defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 to advance to the Group C grand finals. NAVI got off to a good start on their own map pick

Inferno thanks to an outstanding performance from the new addition Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi on the CT side.

Denis “electroNic” Sharipov, the squad’s IGL, handled the fragging part brilliantly in the second half, scooping up 21 kills with an HLTV rating of 1.56, allowing the Ukrainian side to easily capitalize on the momentum and secure a 16-10 victory.

NIP, however, would not go down without a fight, as their star fragger Fredrik “REZ” Sterner’s explosive play propelled the Swedish team to a 16-7 victory at Mirage. The Swedish killing machine decimated the Ukrainian defense repetitively throughout the match, scoring 25 kills and posting an ADR of 119.7 to take the series to the final and decisive map. 

Overpass was a clear-cut affair from start to finish as NAVI quickly raced through a 12-3 lead as Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev kept exploiting the loose ends in NIP defense. Before the Swedish side could find the momentum, NAVI finish off the map with a 16-8 victory to clinch the best of three series 2-1.

With this victory, the Ukrainian team moves on to face G2 in the grand final, where the winner will secure a spot at BLAST Spring Finals. NIP, on the other hand, fall to the Knockout stage of the event, where the Swedish team will face Astralis in the first round.

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