Counter-Strike fans have awaited, and after some long weeks, the highest level of competition in Global Offensive returns to action this week. On Friday, the first stage of BLAST’s Spring circuit will kick off, and we’ll see twelve squads fighting for six spots at the final event of this season’s circuit.
Now, it’s obvious that no CSGO fan will want to miss the return of teams like FaZe, G2 and Na’Vi to the big server, so we’ve prepared this quick guide in order to make sure you’re all up-to-date with the upcoming event. As always, we’ve also selected the key storylines from this event. So, here’s everything you need to know ahead of Spring Groups 2022, and then some more!
TOURNAMENT DETAILS
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2022 will be kicking off this Friday 28th, at 2:00 PM UTC. You can check which time that is in your time zone through here. The opening game will see G2 facing off the new North American Complexity roster. The matches will be streamed at BLAST official channels on Twitch and YouTube.
As for the tournament format, BLAST did do some rework on how their events will go, so let’s detail how it works now. First, the Spring Groups will now feature three stages. The Group Stage, Play-in Stage, and then the Last Chance stage. Here’s how they’ll work.
- Groups: the first phase of the tournament sees three groups, with four teams each playing in best-of-one matches. All groups will advance to the next stage.
- Play-in: at the Play-in, we’ll be seeing three single-elimination brackets. The top teams from each group will advance directly to the brackets’ finals, while second-placed teams will go to the semi-finals. The three bracket winners will qualify for the Spring Finals 2022. The last team from each bracket will be eliminated from the groups, while 2nd and 3rd head to the Last Chance stage. All matches are BO3s.
- Last Chance: single-elimination bracket, and BO3 matches. The winning teams will qualify for BLAST Spring Finals.
Finally, the event will be played online at BLAST servers in Europe. As for rewards, besides of spots at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals, a prize pool of USD $177,498 is also in place. Circuit points for the BLAST Premier circuit will also be awarded to all squads.
Now, here are the tournament’s groups:
So, this should cover everything you need to know before the event. Now, let’s head to the storylines to follow in the event!
A FIRST LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN COUNTER-STRIKE
While we already have watched Complexity at Funspark ULTI Finals a few days ago, it’s fair to say that back then the team wasn’t at full force as their captain had to play from North America in European servers. This means that while we were able to get a glimpse of what this roster can do right now, it wasn’t ideal for them.
Coming for the Spring Groups, however, there are no excuses anymore. We’ll be taking a first look at Complexity, as well as at Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid’s reworked rosters, both which have many fans curious and excited for. Excitement aside, though, all of these three teams have an incredible difficult challenge ahead of them, as they both will be underdogs in their groups.
Still, no one is expecting EG or Liquid to outright beat Natus Vincere or Vitality. Instead, at the Spring Groups all of the three North American teams need to show that these rosters can work. Sure, Complexity might not impress against G2, but Liquid should put a fight against FaZe. Considering Astralis and NiP forms, they should be obvious targets for the American teams, too.
In fact, more than winning, it’s important that these rosters play well, and don’t get demolished right out of the gate. Surely, for EG and Liquid it’ll be their first official games together, but morale is extremely important for the key players from these two rosters, and giving the likes of FaZe a headache at the very minimum will certainly help them start their journey into 2022 with the right foot – something that North American Counter-Strike could really use right now.
MAKING THEIR DEBUT
While it’s going to be very exciting to see Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid’s new roster in action for the first time, we can’t forget about G2 and Vitality either! Both teams will debut their new rosters at the Spring Groups, and they are coming for blood.
Sure, it’s fair to lower expectations a bit considering its their debut, but the difference between G2 and Vitality compared to the North American squads is that they both haven’t had a disappointing year in 2021. As everyone know, both teams were contenders against Gambit and Na’Vi dominance, and the roster changes they made over the break were made in order to boost their chances to reach the very top of the scene.
So, coming for the Spring Groups, we’ll be hoping to see these two squads already putting some great performances. Furthermore, G2 and Vitality are the favorites from their groups. Chances of them qualifying for the Spring Finals are, at least on paper, great, and besides Natus Vincere and themselves, they should see much opposition.
Honestly, looking at these two rosters it’s hard to not get ahead of ourselves, they simply look great! However, even so we still need to acknowledge that both teams might instead need some time until they fully realize their potential. G2 just brought in a new in-game leader, and Vitality became an international roster by adding the ex-Astralis Danish trio. This means that G2 will probably need sometime to work out their tactics, and Vitality will be working on the initial culture clash.
Yet, it’s hard to curb our enthusiasm. These are some of the most hyped rosters at the moment, and they will be both key players in the scene this year.
WILDCARDS
Heading to the Spring Groups, we’ll be seeing three kinds of wildcards at the event. First, we have FaZe Clan, which just completed their roster with ex-MOUZ star Robin “ropz” Kool. This makes FaZe our favorite wildcard, as we don’t quite know how much damage they can cause at this point, but we surely expect them to be giving a difficult time to any team that faces them.
Then, we have BIG. The Germans just added Josef “faveN” Baumann, and as we saw at Funspark ULTI Finals, roles in the team seem to be flowing much better. However, BIG still shows some clear issues. The team still struggles to close maps, and as great as Tizian “tiziaN” Feldbusch supportive skills might be, his individual level is becoming a liability for the team. There is a chance that BIG ends up snatching a spot at the Spring Finals here, but it’s a remote chance nonetheless.
WITHOUT DEVICE
And finally, there’s NiP. As announced by the organization, their AWPer Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz will be out on an extended medical leave. In his place, NiP will be fielding their academy team player Love “phzy” Smidebrant as the team’s AWPer. While phzy has already impressed some, the reality is that he still is a developing talent. He still makes beginners mistakes, and things like pressure could impact him more than the rest of the team. For a team like NiP, which brought dev1ce as a world-class AWPer in hopes of becoming a world-class team, the situation is far from great. Then, we have also to touch on the inconsistency in this team. Nicolas “Plopski” Gonzalez Zamora, especially, have seen some up and downs in his performance, and they can either make or break NiP at times.
So, again, three wildcards. It’s unknown how far FaZe can go right now with ropz, but the outlook is fairly good. BIG is unknown: they are a good team, but issues that hold them back from becoming more than “good” might hold them here too. And then there’s NiP, which will be playing against all the odds as they hope to do some damage in this event. They can do it, sure, but it’s fair to say that they will be underdogs through and through.
THE TEAM TO BEAT
Natus Vincere is coming to the Spring Groups not only as the favorites of their group, but also the favorites to win. As they have shown last year, they can be beaten, but for now, it’s hard to see them getting defeating as most of the teams that could put a fight against them won’t be at their best level due to roster moves. Of course, we can’t forget Gambit, but since they aren’t here, Natus Vincere shouldn’t have any troubles.
Yet, Natus Vincere isn’t undefeatable, and the Spring Groups might be the place where we’ll be seeing the signs of which team will dethrone the CIS powerhouse. Will G2’s duo of Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov and Nikola “NiKo” Kovač be the duo to challenge Na’Vi’s Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi? Or will Vitality’s captain Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and their coach, Danny “zonic” Sørensen figure a way to stop Na’Vi stars?
In any case, for now Natus Vincere remains the undisputed best team in the world, and even if they get beaten here, it’ll be considered as an upset by most fans. However, if any of these teams plan to challenge Na’Vi dominance, it has to start somewhere, and why not at the Spring Groups?
ONE LOOKING UP, ONE LOOKING DOWN
Finally, we also have to address another two unknowns coming to the Spring Groups: Astralis and OG. We’ve seen the former already at Funspark ULTI Finals, and their showing then was disappointing for sure. However, OG has swapped players with G2, and now Nemanja “nexa” Isaković will be the team’s captain.
For Astralis, the Spring Groups will have them as underdogs. They have displayed too many flaws at this point, and with Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth individual form not getting better, and Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke’s inconsistency returning, it’s hard to see the Danes putting a fight against any other team but the likes of Complexity. Astralis still has time to show that we’re all wrong and this team could work, sure, but unless they should something good here, it’ll be hard to defend this roster.
As for OG, they definitely are in a better place than Astralis, but we are still unsure about them. When taking in account their results last year, and considering that Aleksib is out, expectations for this roster are far lower, and this might be all this team needs right now. Without pressure, we could see Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski and Shahar “flameZ” Shushan solving their consistency issues. With OG’s two stars showing up when the team needs, and nexa having less pressure compared to what he had when leading G2, this team could work.
Astralis and OG will be facing each other at their opening match, and the result of that best-of-one will set up the tone of these teams going forward at the Spring Groups. If Astralis loses, it’s hard to see them getting back up. If OG loses, it’ll definitely spoil their debut, and they’ll keep going as not-so-dangerous contenders.
THE SPRING GROUPS START SOON
In less than a day, we’ll be seeing Evil Geniuses, FaZe Clan, G2, Liquid, OG and Vitality new rosters for the first time. Not only that, but the event will also mark the return of premier Counter-Strike! So, in order to not miss a beat, make sure to follow us here!
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