The Favorites of the BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown

The BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown is right around the corner and unlike during IEM Beijing, the European middle-of-the-pack teams can finally tackle some bigger lineups. On top of that, some American teams have made their way over to this continent and will join the fight.

The Showdown is split into two Single Elimination brackets. Each one of these brackets will award just one spot to the Fall Finals, which means that there can only be two overall winners. Teams like Astralis, G2 Esports, Vitality, and Natus Vincere have already qualified, leaving the losers of the Regular Season behind. They will now have to face some invited teams, who will make these two brackets a dangerous and exciting affair for all involved.

The first bracket features teams like FaZe Clan, Virtus.pro, and Team Liquid. These three teams have the biggest shot at victory. But there is huge upset potential in the rest of the playing field. Team Spirit have last proven that during ESL Pro League, where they pulled off upsets over NiP, FaZe, and even Vitality.

But the biggest question mark of this event arrives in the form of Team Liquid. From their past, we know how well these North Americans can put up a show. But Jake “Stewie2k” Yip has only played regional teams in his new role as the in-game-leader. With this roster, he will meet a European team for the first time as a shotcaller. On top of that, MAD Lions are not to be underestimated. Since the signing of Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen as the IGL, almost two months have passed. They should now bring some fundamentals to the table.

So far, FaZe Clan have not announced their fifth player for this event. If Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer is to reprise his role as a stand-in, then the team has a rocky tournament ahead. Since coming back from his lengthy break, he has struggled mightily. Even though he has never been a top performer for FaZe, this will still deal quite a blow to their abilities.

COMPLEXITY, MOUZ ND HEROIC VYING FOR THE FINALS SPOT

On the other side of the bracket, more stable rosters are entering the fray. Complexity have made great progress with Justin “jks” Savage, who is getting increasingly comfortable with his new team. Even though mousesports have struggled in their recent tournaments, they should still stand a chance at this Showdown. After all, their biggest opponents aren’t in attendance – although Endpoint are waiting for them in this bracket. The British team most famously took them down twice and almost kept them from qualifying for DreamHack Open Fall. At this tournament, however, Endpoint lost to Heroic in the Losers’ Match of Group B – and now they’ll have to face the exact same team again for BLAST Premier.

They have certainly not been lucky in this draft. Actually, they should have been facing Evil Geniuses in the Opening Match, but they will unfortunately not be able to depart the United States due to Covid-related restrictions. Their replacement at the Showdown is none other than Heroic, the winners of ESL One Cologne and DreamHack Open Fall. Endpoint could hardly have been any less fortunate in this draft.

Heroic, however, can be quite happy with this spotaneous move. Even though they’re technically speaking just the ‘replacement’, they’re the top favorites to win this bracket. They consistently make deeper runs into events than mousesports. Complexity are up for quite a challenge as well. Even though Heroic exited IEM Beijing before them, they at least managed to make their match versus Vitality a close one. Benjamin “blameF” Bremer and his boys can’t say the same of themselves.

CLOUD HAVE TO GET GOING

The C9 hype died down faster than their debut match against Virtus.pro. Henry “HenryG” Greer had definitely managed to excite the CS:GO community for his new project, but after a last-place finish in the BLAST Premier: Fall Regular Season, the critics and doubters were quick to raise their voices. Now, the task of this team is to stay alive in this tournament for as long as possible. But the Ninjas in Pyjamas could be too much to handle in their Opening Match already. If NiP can manage to win over G2 and steal maps off of Heroic and BIG, then a victory over the new Cloud9 roster doesn’t seem to be all that unlikely.

So a lot is at stake for the teams attending the BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown. Team Liquid and FURIA will have to prove that NA CS can still keep up. Cloud9 and mousesports desperately want victories, even if it’s just some close matches against top teams. Heroic are the favorites and can only really embarass themselves if they don’t win. All along the way, middle class teams with lots of upset potential are waiting to strike down one of the more established superteams.