Mary C

BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021 is kicking off tonight, September 16 at 10:30 PM PST with its first match between the CS:GO squads of Astralis and Evil Geniuses.  

The group stage of the tournament features three groups of four teams each, fighting in a best-of-three double-elimination GSL format. The CS:GO teams of Astralis and Evil Geniuses have met face-to-face thrice in 2021.  

In ESL Pro League Season 13 in March this year, EG won 2:1 against Astralis; while Astralis defeated EG on two occasions in IEM Katowice 2021 and BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 with scores of 2:0 and 2:1 respectively. 

In recent times, Astralis has not been in the top form that it once enjoyed. They have won five matches out of the last 10 they played. On the other hand, Evil Geniuses’ CS:GO squad has struggled quite a lot recently. Out of their last 10 matches, they have won only one. 

Evil Geniuses will not have Peter “Stanislaw” Jarguz and Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte in their roster for the tournament as they have taken leave due to mental health reasons. 

Click here to choose your favorite team to win now!

BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021

by: Wilson C

Twelve of the world's best eSport teams will clash with a $150,000 prize pool in the BLAST Premier Groups. Games will commence this coming September 16, 2021 at 10:30PM PST. BLAST Fall groups will see the competition resume at the highest level.  Here’s all you need to know about this tournament, including the teams, prize pool and format. 

These are the twelve teams who will be taking part in the Fall Groups: 

Astralis 

Evil Geniuses 

Team Vitality 

Team Liquid 

G2 esports 

MIBR 

NiP 

BIG 

NAVI 

OG 

Faze Clan 

Team Complexity 

The Blast Premier Format is categorized by 3 groups: Group A, Group B, and Group C  

BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021 Group A Bracket

Astralis has not been very consistent all throughout the season when their superstar AWP player Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz left Astralis for Ninjas in Pyjamas. Another problem for the team is that their in-game leader, Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander, announced that he will not be part of the Astralis roster for the upcoming BLAST Premier Fall group stages as he prepares for the birth of his child. 

Xyp9x will come back into the active lineup after being left out of the group stages of ESL Pro League Season 14, in which the Danish squad failed to qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament as they made their first appearance with their newest member, Philip "⁠Lucky⁠" Ewald. 

Astralis’ in-game leader "gla1ve" said, "I really want to play, but I also did not want to put the team in a position where they had to change a player while a tournament was going on," stated the Danish in-game leader on Twitter. "Together with Danny, I am doing everything to prepare and help the team get ready for the BLAST group stage."   

For the Astralis fans out there, let us just hope that someone can fill in the shoes for "gla1ve", because without a leader, the team's integrity eventually erodes. As he once said: "A good leader listens and talks to the team to find the individual strengths of each team member. Let's hope they can give us a good fight! 

Evil Geniuses’ top 2 players won't be joining the Blast Premier due to health reasons. Evil Geniuses will not have Peter “Stanislaw” Jarguz and Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte in their roster for the tournament as they have taken their leave. 

Evil Geniuses’ CS:GO squad have struggled quite a lot recently. Out of their last 10 matches, they won only one.  That means, with their two new additional stand-ins, they should train more and find their chemistry, or else they will have to exit the tournament very early. 

Team Liquid has been performing well in their last 17 games, winning 12 out of 17 matches. Liquid came extremely close to beating Heroic in the Quarterfinals of EPL S14, which in turn came close to beating Natus Vincere in the Semifinals. So, we can assess that Stewie2K and FalleN have a very strong roster at the moment and will probably finish 2nd or 1st in Group C of Blast Premier Fall Groups. 

Vitality is one of those teams that have been doing consistently good all year long. Unlike many top teams, Vitality hasn’t faltered in the online era, and they consistently put-up good performances in almost every tournament. However, the roster seems to choke on the final hurdle, as they have been to four finals and failed to lift a trophy in 2020. 

Vitality was the champion of the BLAST Premier Fall last year 2020 in Group B, and they pulled off the victory in an impressive performance. The French organization unleashed their six-man roster on the CS:GO world for the first time, and it was indeed a sight to behold. Vitality will be looking to redeem themselves after falling short in the ESL Season 14 Finals. Let’s see what will happen in the Blast Premier Fall Groups. 

BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021 Group B Bracket

G2 is one of the greatest teams in the world. G2 must return to its high skill level, or it will be the same with the EPL S14 disaster. Francois ‘AmaNEk’ Delaunay was a highlight for the G2 squad, pulling out the AWP in kennyS’ absence and really making it work for the Frenchmen. Despite his critics, he is a key part of the team. 

However, Audric ‘JaCkz’ Jug’s inconsistency could be holding G2 back, especially when he doesn’t have a fast start. The French team lost all 5-group stage matches in that tournament and was unrecognizable. Hopefully, NiKo and his teammates had figured out what went wrong and fixed it. Because otherwise, G2 has no chance of finishing in the top 2 in this group. 

MIBR, all things considered, shouldn’t even be here. But since they signed a contract with BLAST Premier and became a partner team back when they still had FalleN and other strong Brazilian players, their spot was guaranteed. Let’s hope they will prove worthy of it and maybe cause some upsets. However, it will be very hard to accomplish anything at this competitive level. 

NiP has been underperforming even with the transfer of superstar AWPer Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz. NiP is not weak, but something’s clearly not clicking. device is either not communicating effectively with his teammates or they are not playing well enough around him. Something will have to change in the next few days. Otherwise, the only option left is a roster change. Given the cost of the Danish player’s transfer, the Swedish organization is actually underperforming right now, even though it frequently finishes in the top 8.  

They came up short against OG last September 9, 2021. It was not even a close game in map 3 where OG choked NIP out. NIP finished 5-8th place. Can they redeem themselves? Can the Danish awper prove that he was worthy of the buyout transfer? 

As for BIG, the team defeated Evil Geniuses in the EPL S14 and even managed to beat Natus Vincere (2 – 0) in the Group Stage, clearly proving that it has tremendous potential. Ultimately, the German squad failed to qualify for the Playoffs after it lost 3 matches against 3 strong opponents: Fnatic, mousesports, and FaZe Clan. But at an event like BLAST Premier Fall Groups and a group like this one, their odds of finishing 1st or 2nd are extremely high. 

BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021 Group C Bracket

OG Esport is one of the new best team, improving very fast in the CS:GO community but fell short against Vitality in EPL S14. OG ended the Group Stage of EPL S14 with 5 consecutive wins. After that, it defeated NiP in the Quarterfinals (2 – 1) before losing to Vitality (0 – 2) in the Semifinals. OG had a good run, and hopefully they can train harder and come back stronger! 

FaZe clan is one of the best team in the world. If you watch them play, you will quickly come to realize that this is a very strong team. Twistzz has been fully integrated, karrigan is playing the IGL role very well, and the rest of the roster is exceptional. Olofmeister, broky, and rain are all great players.  

FaZe Clan was eliminated from EPL S14 after a decent Group Stage performance: 3 W – 2 L. What happened to them was simply bad luck.  

Complexity has a new lineup added to their roster. Coldzera is widely considered as one of the best CS:GO players of all time, having been ranked #1 by HLTV two years in a row in 2016 and 2017. Coldzera has 8 MVPs throughout his career. 

Complexity, as a team, still has a lot of improvements to make. The challenge comes inside of the team first, because communication will surely be an obstacle, as their players are from different countries. The team also have to adjust the role of their new superstar Coldzera. Can Coldzera bring complexity further in the Blast Premier Fall group? 

The Crowned Champions, Na’Vi ,is the world’s best team and s1mple is by far the strongest CS:GO player in the world right now. The CIS squad "NaVi" has become the third team to win an Intel Grand Slam. Natus Vincere have closed out another season of the Intel Grand Slam, securing the $1 million cheque after defeating Vitality in the ESL Pro League Season 14 grand finals. 

Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and company have thus become the third team to be awarded Intel’s gold bars following Astralis and Liquid, the winners of the first two seasons. s1mple was awarded the 16th MVP of his career. This is his third consecutive win as MVP, having also been the most valuable player at the StarLadder CIS RMR and IEM Cologne before the break. 

s1mple was the best performer at the event in a number of categories, including rating (1.35), impact rating (1.48), KAST (77.8%), and kills per round (0.88), while also being top-5 in terms of ADR (87.3), K-D difference (+135), and opening kills per round (0.18). 

His consistency was impeccable, finishing just two maps with a below-average rating (0.69 on Inferno vs. Evil Geniuses and 0.96 on Overpass against Vitality), allowing him to edge out the main rival for the MVP award in Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, who posted a 1.31 event rating in Vitality's runners-up finish. We can all say that s1mple carried his team to victory. He surely deserved the MVP award! 

Prize Pool Distribution 

The $150,000 will be distributed among the 12 teams in the following way: 

Group Winners: $25,000 each 

Group Finalists: $12,500 each 

3rd place teams: $7,500 each 

4th place teams: $5,000 each 

Tell us which team you are rooting for in each group. We will see you later in the first match of the day! 

OB.Neon Vs Dream Maker 

OB.Neon has been through a team rebuilding and what makes the match even more exciting to see is the disruptive roster shuffle by OB.Neon. They will be playing with four new players, which can cause a drastic shift in the teams’ usual drafts, strategies and even the team chemistry. 

Thus, resulting in their poor performance in the recent matches 

OB.Neon currently is at the 9th place standing, and their team has the highest chance to get eliminated if they will still continue to perform poorly. 

On the other hand, Dream Maker, a team that is not familiar in the Southeast Asia scene yet, lost horribly yesterday against Team SMG. They could not get back up their feet and hold their ground when the opposing team SMG.MidOne came knocking through their doors! 

Dream Maker has still a lot to prove. They need to play as a team and be synchronized in clashes. Because after all it is not all about farming, it is also about controlling the map. Whoever controls more of the map wins, because they will have a lot of resources and spaces to farm. 

Execration Vs Army Geniuses 

This match is a must-watch on your list of games for today. Execration is one of the most consistent Filipino squad in the SEA region and have proved their worth in countless of games. Execration is only missing a hard carry player and they have found a new player "Tino" to fill in the missing carry role in their team. However, we would still point the spotlight at Ryan “Raging Potato” Jay Qui in particular.  

The opponents must pay attention to keeping him out of his comfort zone as an offlaner. Because if he gets a good offlane, rest assured that the game is very much over at only midgame. Raging Potato never hesitates to push his advantages and snowballs out of control. With a new line-up and hopes, perhaps the new Execration line-up can finally bring the team into the international spotlight at the BTS Pro Series Season 8 SEA. 

As for their opponents in this match, the Army Geniuses proved they are also not to be messed with. They also boast a capable team of Indonesian prodigies. The team is now in their 2nd year in the eSports scene and has earned respect from many rivals. 

Pick your teams because this is surely a good match to watch!

Galaxy Racer vs YG (Yangon Galacticos) 

Galaxy Racer was the champion last Beyond the Summit season 7. They proved to be the biggest surprise of the tournament even from the group stage matches. GXR placed second in the round-robin group by landing three clean 2-0 victories, including over T1, and once they reached the playoffs, they secured a grand finals appearance after they took T1 down again and slayed Fnatic. Galaxy Racer's perfect team fight coordination ensured them the comeback scenario from a 13K gold deficit and a lane of barracks down, and they pulled the 3-2 reverse sweep to claim the BTS Pro Series Season 7: Southeast Asia grand finals. 

But right now, coming in the round-robin of BTS season 8 and having won 1 game out of 4, we can all say that Galaxy Racer had a rough start adjusting with the new meta. GXR currently sits at the last place of the round-robin standing. But GXR fans should not fret, as they still have 7 series left to play. We just have to give them support and hope they can do a comeback! 

Team YG is the only full Myanmar-built team that has played in the Asia professional leagues. YG currently sits at #5 in the standing. Can they be 1st time SEA BTS Champions and make their fans and country proud of them? Can YG keep up their incredible performance in the Dota2 scene? 

Catch the game live only at 747 LIVE!