BLAST Premier Fall Groups Predictions

BLAST Premier Fall Groups is the last prestigious CS:GO event until the PGL Major. The competition features 12 of the world’s best teams, has a prize pool of $150,000, and is scheduled to take place online between September 16^th – 26^th.

BLAST Premier Fall Groups Details

BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021 will be played in 3 separate groups that do not interfere with each other. In other words, it consists of 3 events merged into one. Each of the 3 groups consists of 4 teams. The top 2 teams advance to the Fall Finals. The bottom two teams advance to the Fall Showdown. Every match is Bo3. The competitive format of the Groups is double-elimination.

Participants

The 12 teams that will take part in BLAST Premier Fall Groups are the following:

Astralis
BIG
Complexity
Evil Geniuses
FaZe Clan
G2 Esports
MIBR
Natus Vincere
Ninjas in Pyjamas
OG
Team Liquid
Team Vitality

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
3^rd place teams: $7,500 each
4^th place teams: $5,000 each

BLAST Premier Fall Groups Tips and Analysis

These are the 3 groups of BLAST Premier Fall Groups and their favorites:

Group A

Astralis
BIG
Complexity
Evil Geniuses

This should be an easy group for Astralis and BIG, which are much stronger than Complexity and Evil Geniuses. However, only the matches themselves can show us if the statistics are correct.

Astralis is currently playing with Lucky instead of gla1ve, which might prove to be a huge problem for the Danish team. After all, who can replace gla1ve’s IGL skills? And on top of that, Lucky is just a young talented player who has yet to prove himself. Since he started playing for Astralis, the team’s performance took a nosedive. At ESL Pro League Season 14, his crew finished 13^th – 16^th. The Danes played in Group A, where they were defeated by ENCE, Vitality, and Heroic, and were only able to beat Spirit and Bad News Bears.

To be fair, Heroic and Vitality went on to do great things in the Playoffs of the tournament, so it makes perfect sense that Astralis lost against them with an experimental roster. It’s been almost 4 weeks since that failure and that’s a long time in CS:GO. A good team with a great training schedule will change a lot in 4 weeks.

As for BIG, the team defeated Evil Geniuses at 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 1^st or 2^nd are extremely high.

Group B

FaZe Clan
G2 Esports
MIBR
Natus Vincere

This is a very tough group, probably the most challenging of the 3. Apart from Na’Vi, which just won EPL S14 and the Intel Grand Slam, we have G2 and FaZe Clan, two of the greatest teams in the world. Of course, assuming that G2 has returned to its normal skill level since the EPL S14 disaster. The French team lost all 5 group stage matches in that tournament and was unrecognizable. Hopefully, NiKo and his teammates 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 a while ago, 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. But it will be very hard to accomplish anything at this competitive level.

Na’Vi is the world’s best team and s1mple is by far the strongest CS:GO player in the world right now. However, a big success, such as the one they experienced at EPL S14, can often make you lose the drive to train hard, at least for a while. And in esports, one week of complacency is all it takes to lose your edge and start struggling even against much weaker opponents. But let’s hope that Na’Vi’s roster knows how to handle success and hasn’t partied non-stop over the last 4 days.

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 and if you watch them play, you 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.

The most likely result in this group is the following: Na’Vi (1^st), FaZe Clan (2^nd), G2 (3^rd), MIBR (4^th).

Group C

Ninjas in Pyjamas
OG
Team Liquid
Team Vitality

This will be another tough group to win. Based on what they showed us at the recent EPL S14, Vitality should be the winner. But to do that, the French squad will need to defeat some really strong opponents.

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.

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 months. Because 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.

Liquid came extremely close to beating Heroic in the Quarterfinals of EPL S14, which in turn came close to beating Na’Vi in the Semifinals. So we can assess that Stewie2K and FalleN have a very strong roster at the moment and will probably finish 2^nd or 1^st in Group C of BLAST Premier Fall Groups.

Photo credit: IEM|Simon-Howar