BLAST Premier Spring Groups: Preview

After almost a month since the 2022 season officially ended with the title of G2 Esports in the BLAST Premier World Finals, CS:GO is officially back. In charge of opening the competitions at the highest level will be BLAST, the same one that closed the previous season a month ago.

This circuit kicks off the 2023 CS:GO season with the BLAST Premier Spring Groups. This event will kick off in two days, i.e., next January 19, 2023. In it, all BLAST franchise teams will take the first step. The Spring Groups is about to start, and when it reaches its end, we will know the six qualifiers to the finals and the six who will go to the Last Chance Showdown.

The wait is over

While it’s true that the break in the CS:GO competitive scene lasts less than other esports, we all certainly missed it. Recently, the winners of the best players of the 2022 season were announced, and Ukrainian and GOAT Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev won the award. Meanwhile, the rest of the players and teams are warming up the bench ahead of the 2023 season.

As we mentioned, January 19 will officially kick off the 2023 Counter-Strike: Gobal Offensive season next Thursday. The BLAST Spring Groups will have its usual group stage, where the twelve participating teams are divided into three groups, which are:

Group A

• Heroic
• Team Vitality
• Astralis
• Evil Geniuses

Group B

• FaZe Clan
• Team Liquid
• OG
• Complexity

Group C

• G2 Esports
• NaVi
• BIG
• NiP

Seeing the distribution of these groups, we can be sure that the emotions will be total in each match. But there is no doubt that the spotlight is on Group C, as we have G2 Esports, current champions of BLAST, NaVi, and NiP.

It is worth remembering that this tournament does not crown a champion, as it is essential to advance to the spring finals.

Exciting matches in the group stage

The BLAST Premier Spring Groups start with the match between Heroic and EG in Group A, followed by the duel between Astralis and Team Vitality.

In Group B, we can also have exciting matches, especially taking into account Complexity, a team that always surprises. On the other hand, Group C, the so-called Group of Death, has as its main match G2 Esports vs. NaVi. Both teams are looking forward to starting the year in the best possible way.

Tournament Format

Each group has a double elimination bracket, which positions the teams in the Play-In phase. Then, the three winners of each group advance directly to the Spring Finals. On the other hand, the other three remaining teams advance to the Play-In phase according to their positions in each group.

In the Play-In phase, the three remaining places for the Spring Finals will be disputed, and the six teams that fail will have to play the Showdown. Thus, we will have a spectacular start to the 2023 season, with exciting groups and high-voltage matches.

New faces in the teams

Some teams will show their new additions in this BLAST Premier Spring Groups. Astralis will have the return of Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz and Christian “Buzz” Møss. NiP to Danyyl “headtr1ck” Valitov. On the other hand, NaVi will play its first tournament with Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi as the fifth player.

The BLAST will have G2 as the most recent to lift a title, Heroic as the current TOP 1 in the world, and the ones we can never leave out, like FaZe, NaVi, and Vitality.

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