BLAST Showdown: Mousesports and FURIA Are Heading to Fall Finals

The BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown has found its conclusion and two teams are heading to the Fall Finals. On the way, another 14 teams were left behind and had to go home empty-handed. Some of them had to suffer fatal blows. 

After their victory in the DreamHack Open Fall tournament, Heroic have lost some of their edge again. Their defeat to Vitality in the IEM Beijing playoffs was somewhat understandable, given that the Frenchmen wound up winning the entire event. But now, Heroic only narrowly survived against Endpoint and were then booted off by mousesports. On the last two maps in particular, they completely failed to get into the game. At least they managed to put up a relatively solid performance against c0ntact Gaming in DreamHack Masters Winter EU, which puts them just one match win away from the playoffs there.

The North American teams have definitely progressed and shown more than what was expected of them. MIBR threw FaZe Clan off the tournament and Liquid then eliminated them. Liquid eventually failed against FURIA, but at least they managed to secure some wins and recorded better results. Still, the performance of Jake “Stewie2k” Yip is somewhat worrying. As an in-game-leader and as a player, he really didn’t stand his ground versus FURIA. Is it just this team in particular? Or will Stewie and his team struggle just as much going up against European teams? Unfortunately, BLAST failed to provide an answer to that. Aside from MAD Lions, Liquid only faced North American opponents in this tournament.

CLOUD9 ARE STILL NOT AT 100%

Cloud9 might be on the right track, but they are only progressing very slowly. With their victory over Complexity, they have proven their potential and finally beat a top team. But after that, they lost two weak maps to mousesports, which went to show that they can only win with minute preparation and lots of luck. Finn “karrigan” Andersen allowed Cloud9 to secure some rounds and found enough weaknesses to quickly dispatch them. Following their fantastic victory over Heroic, mousesports deserve their BLAST Premier: Fall Finals spot more than ever.

But the same doesn’t hold true for FURIA. Even though they won a rather one-sided match over Team Liquid, they had a comparatively easy road through the playoffs. Isurus and Virtus.pro are really no top teams by any means, whereas mousesports had to fight GODSENT, Heroic, and Cloud9 for their spot. So have the Brazilians really improved this much? Or will the same issues surface again as soon as they meet BIG, G2, or OG at the Fall Finals?

THE BIG DISAPPOINTMENTS

FaZe still can’t perform properly. The strategy to keep Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer as a stand-in, hasn’t really worked out so far. Back from a lengthy break, the Swede just isn’t anywhere near his former level and really drags the Clan down. But the rest of the players have dropped noticeably as well. They’re now getting handled even by the likes of Team Spirit. Maybe they want to ride out the rest of the year in this setup, but they desperately need to sign a competent in-game-leader.

Sprout have suffered from a downward trend as well. Their second-place finish in the ESEA Premier playoffs is their only success in recent time. In August, they managed to succeed over lots of great teams and even made the Quarter Finals of ESL One Cologne 2020. But there isn’t a lot left from this performance. In their match against Complexity, all the players earned negative ratings only. With 14 kills and a 0.50 rating, Michal “snatchie” Rudzki was the bottom performer for his team.

In itself, GODSENT’s defeat to mousesports during the Showdown might look bad. But with their upset victory over Astralis, they have shown that Luka “emi” Vuković is slowly moving this team ahead. Maybe they can now unlock the next level, as they really don’t lack individually capable players.

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THE TEAMS NOW?

For many teams, the fight continues in the DreamHack Masters Winter EU tournament. There, GODSENT have already struck with an upset victory over Astralis, whereas Cloud9 fell on an 0-2 scoreline to Gambit. FaZe have also admitted defeat versus Team Spirit. But the most tragic result of the tournament so far is that Astralis and Liquid will face off in the Lower Bracket already. One of these teams will have to leave the tournament with two direct losses to their name.