Preview of BLAST Premier Spring Finals 2021
Ihor MatusGeneral information
BLAST Premier Spring Finals 2021 will be taking place from 15 till 20 June. The overall prize pool of the tournament will consist of $425,000. There will be eight participating teams: six of them got invited thanks to their good performance at Spring Groups, and the other two played better than their competitors at Spring Showdown. The six contestants from Spring Groups are BIG, Complexity Gaming, Natus Vincere, NiP, Evil Geniuses, and FaZe Clan. The duet that was destined to go through Spring Showdown is represented by G2 Esports and Gambit Esports.
As for division of the grabs, the winner will get $225,000 and an invitation to the BLAST Premier World Final 2021 with a prize pool of $1,000,000. The vice champion will gain $85,000. The other collectives will earn from $10,000 to $40,000.
We already know how the participant have been seeded into pairs, so we will base our reasoning on this factor. Gambit Esports will oppose Evil Geniuses, NiP will fight with Complexity Gaming, G2 Esports will play with BIG, and NAVI and FaZe Clan will determine who of them will proceed to the semifinal of the upper bracket.
Gambit Esports
Win odds: 3
Position in the HLTV rating — #1
At the moment Gambit Esports position themselves as the best team in the world and the title of this CIS team will not be an overstatement. In 2020, Gambit specialized in Tier-2 tournaments and won them one by one earning lot of money. In 2021, the nestlings fledged and headed for Tier-1. This year the team has managed to win such championships like Pinnacle Cup, Vulkan Fight Series, EPIC CIS League Spring 2021 and, of course. at the recently completed Intel Extreme Masters Summer 2021. Besides, the team has become a silver finalist of Snow Sweet Snow #1 and DreamHack Masters Spring 2021. In the first case the roster did not get any reward for their work, but at the second event the team was honored to put $42,000 in their stock.
The team is at the peak of their shape right now. This is proven by both the team’s performance and their individual skills. At the latest event, IEM Summer 2021, Ax1le from the CIS team showed such an outstanding game that he was humbled to be called the best player of the tournament for the second time in a row.
Gambit Esports is going to face Evil Geniuses at the first battle. Their rivals have a chance to win the debut match, but in our opinion it is not as high as EG’s representatives want it to be.
Gambit Esports is the main favourite of winning the championship.
Evil Geniuses
Win odds: 26
Position in the HLTV rating — #21
In April, Evil Geniuses made interesting reshuffles in their roster. After two year’s collaboration with Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik, the management of the club decided to modify it. Tarik stopped playing for the American organization and his place was taken by the Polish esportsman Mikhail ‘MICHU’ Muller. At first the team tried to achieve good teamwork and, as a natural result, lost a huge number of positions in the HLTV rating. There the team dropped from 22nd place to 38th. At Intel Extreme Masters Summer 2021, the team performed well and made it to the playoff but there the players faced Gambit Esports and got defeated by the CIS team as it had been expected. After the 5th-6th place, the team not only returned to their position in Top-30 but got higher than 22nd place, even if it did not last long. Now the team is placed in the 21st position. But we remembered EG’s defeat at the battle with Gambit at the playoff of IEM Summer 2021 for a reason. In the first round Evil Geniuses are going to play Gambit Esports. Taking note of the fact that EG are likely to lose the debut battle, we can suppose that the team will start with a drop to the lower bracket and later the players will have to fight for their further survival.
Due to the majority of the enlisted circumstables, Evil Geniuses is the main outsider of the championship.
NiP
Win odds: 5
Position in the HLTV rating — #11
NiP continue carrying out experiments with their roster. Recently the management of the club has reported about new changes in the roster. This time Erik ‘ztr’ Gustafsson was sent to the roster of Young Ninjas. Let us remind that Erik initially played in this young roster, after that he was sent to inactive and later he was welcomed at the lineup. On trial of course, but he managed to get to the lineup. Now the 17-year-old esportsman will have to continue his way where he started — at the young roster of the Swedish club, and the lineup took on Linus ‘LBZ’ Holtäng for IEM Summer 2021. The management of the organization told that they were going to experiment with their roster and try various players from the young roster. We know nothing about the player who the management would like to set as a fifth player but we know one thing for sure — expectations of the experts from booking companies are too high and the odds are too small. We can explain it by Nicolai ‘device’ Reedtz ‘s appearance in the Swedish team. There isn’t any other explanation. After the second place at Flashpoint Season 3 the team took the 7th-8th position at IEM Summer 2021 which cannot be called a great result. Not only did the team let their fans down but also made some reshuffles in the roster.
NiP is definitely not our favourite but we think that the roster can enter Top-4.
Complexity Gaming
Win odds: 7.5
Position in the HLTV rating — 14
Complexity Gaming will meet with NiP at the first battle and we will be frank — here we are on the side with blameF and his teammates. The roster looks equal to NiP but unlike the latter Complexity’s roster did not go through changes in the team, so we can understand it as a positive factor. Complexity Gaming as well as NiP participated in the recently finished Intel Extreme Masters Summer 2021 and took the 7th-8th place there, and at the world rating from HLTV the team took the 14th position which is only three lines lower than in NiP’s case.
In the first battle Complexity will be playing with NiP and to our mind they will later fight with Gambit in the next round where they are going to fail and then drop to the lower bracket. It means that the team will get to at least Top-6 and if the game goes well, they will be able to make it to Top-4.
G2 Esports
Win odds: 7.5
Position in the HLTV rating — 4
G2 Esports is likely to be one of the most underrated participants of the tournament if not the most underrated. The team is now holding the fourth place in the world rating. The team was able to achieve these results after several successful performances. At first the team took 1st-2nd place at BLAST Premier Spring Showdown 2021, after that took third place at the European qualifiers at IEM Summer 2021. After that G2, despite the tag of the club, had lots of three places at major tournaments. 3rd-4th places were taken by G2’s players at DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 and IEM Summer 2021. At Flashpoint Season 3 they also got placed on the third position. What can prevent G2 Esports from getting to Top-4 and taking third-fourth place? There seem to be no tangible reasons, it can happen only if the players show a bad performance which will be lower than the fans could expect. We think that G2 is the main favourite of getting 3rd-4th place at the event, especially considering the fact that the Europeans will have to fight with BIG in the first round.
By the way, do you remember that G2’s roster includes one of the best players in the world, Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač? This is the player who took second place in the list of 20 best players in the world according to HLTV in 2017, in 2018 his place was third, and in 2019 it was 11th, and in 2020 it was 4th. It sounds like another reason why G2 will be able to climb high, doesn’t it?
BIG
Win odds: 17
Position in the HLTV rating — 14
BIG is a rather questionable team. This German star flickers. Almost a year ago, from 6 July till 24 August, BIG was going through their best times and they were at the top of the list of the best CS:GO teams according to HLTV. Now the situation changed as well as the roster, so the team is already in the ninth position. However we should note that BIG is included in the group of teams that accounts for Top-10 roster unlike FaZe Clan and other teams.
Lets us remind that recently, on June 2, the German team finished participating in Spring Sweet Spring #2. Even though the team did not get monetary a reward there, they achieved second place which is definitely worthy. We are sure that BIG will have to prepare for such a huge event like хорошо BLAST Premier Spring Final 2021.
It is a paradox as considering all the mentioned facts our intuitive feelings make us hope for a good performance from tabseN and his teammates.
NAVI
Win odds: 4
Position in the HLTV rating — 2
Natus Vincere is one of the main favourites. To our mind, their chance of triumph is not as good as in Gambit Esports’ case. Should we expect Oleksander ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev and his teammates at the final? Good question. Now the teams is placed on the second line in the world rating by HLTV, however their performance raises lots of questions about the players’ performance at the upcoming tournament. If at the beginning of May Natus Vincere fought at DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 well and became the winners, the players took fifth place at the recently finished EPIC CIS League Spring 2021. We should remember that a match for the fifth place was not supposed to happen, however the organizers decided to hold it for NAVI and Entropiq where Natus Vincere won by all means.
how will NAVI at this championship? We think that in comparison with some participants their chance of entering the grand final and winning is pretty high, however, taking into account their performance at EPIC CIS League Spring 2021, it is difficult for us to call this team a favourite of the event. On the other hand the overall prize pool of BLAST Premier Spring Finals 2021 consists of $425,000 which can be a key motivating factor for electronic and his duelling comrades.
FaZe Clan
Win odds: 15
Position in the HLTV rating — 14
The team seems to be one of the main outsiders of the tournament if not the main. Twistzz’s transfer to FaZe Clan could not strengthen the team and lead the Europeans to the new level. Recently FaZe has faced new changes in the roster. On June 1 Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David got banched and his spot in the roster was taken by Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer left the team and returned to it on numerous occasions. But we can hardly call the Swedish player a reinforcement. FaZe Clan is likely to use the situation that the expectations about them are not high and it can play a cruel joke with their rivals but we don’t think that FaZe Clan can climb high in the tournament bracket. We think that Twistzz and his teammates will be one of the first teams to leave the tournament.