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BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 are Underway

Competitive CS:GO is back with the BLAST Premier: Spring Groups as teams battle for their chance to play in the Finals in June.

The Counter Stike: Global Offensive 2023 Competitive season is underway, with the BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 having started on January 19th in Copenhagen, Denmark. With five matches having already been played in the past couple of days, we’ve already seen some incredible matches, and it’s only going to get better as teams continue toward their goal of taking home part of the $175,000 prize pool and more importantly qualify for BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023.

Six teams will qualify for the 2023 BLAST Premier: Spring Final via these Group stage tournaments. Two other teams will qualify via regional “Showdown” tournaments, one from Europe and one from the Americas. The Spring Final is scheduled for June 6-11th and is set to have a $425,000 prize pool. The location for the Spring Final has yet to be announced. 

January 19-20th in Review

The tournament started off with a bang as Evil Geniuses shocked the CS:GO world by taking down Heroic in an incredible 2-1 series. Heroic started out to a quick start winning the first map, Inferno 16-7. Evil Geniuses then got off to a quick 11-4 first-half lead on the second map, Ancient. Heroic started to mount a comeback making Evil Geniuses sweat as they struggled to close the map out 16-14. Evil Geniuses were then able to defend a 9-6 first-half lead closing out a competitive match by winning the third map, Overpass, 16-14. 

Vitality showed great poise, winning the next match 2-0 against Astralis. On the first map, Overpass, Vitality found themselves down 11-9 after having a 9-6 lead at the end of the first half. However, instead of folding, they found a way to shut down Astralis’ momentum closing out the map 16-12. To prove that their ability to perform under pressure wasn’t a fluke on the second map, Vertigo, Vitality was able to force overtime after being down 7-13. Astralis wouldn’t find a single overtime round as Vitality took the second map 19-15.

The next day FaZe would handle Complexity rather easily in the first match. FaZe would take the match 2-0 as Complexity would struggle to win 15 rounds on the two maps combined. Complexity has two days to get over the 16-6 and 16-9 embarrassments on Inferno and Overpass, respectfully.

The next match had people wondering if there would be any competitive maps that day, as OG took a 16-6 win over Team Liquid on Ancient. Liquid would show up for the second map as the two teams battled back and forth to overtime, with OG taking the map and match with a 22-20 win on Nuke. 

The last match on the 20th was between G2 and BIG. The first map took place on Mirage and saw both teams trade back-and-forth streaks of momentum. G2 would end up taking it 16-14. G2 then capitalized on the momentum as they watched as BIG crumbled on the second map, Inferno, after G2 was able to get off to hot starts at the start of both halves. 

Upcoming Schedule

Due to the format of the tournament, not all of the match opponents have been finalized. As of now, the schedule of matches with confirmed opponents is below, please note the times listed are in ET. 

Sat. January 21st

Natus Vincere vs Ninjas in Pyjamas – 6 AM

Evil Geniuses vs Vitality – 9 AM

Heroic vs Astralis – 12:30 PM

Sun. January 22nd

FaZe vs OG – 9 AM

Complexity vs Liquid – 12:30 PM