Blast Premier Group Stage B Upset City

As promised I am following up with the second week of Group Stage B from Blast Premier that took place over the weekend. I won’t get into too deep of detail on how the system works since I went over it in the last post as well as extensively in previous videos. What I will do is hype you all up for how insane this year of professional Counter Strike is going to be just two months into the year. I made some wild predictions with some not panning out, but others absolutely hitting home. Let’s get right into it.

My initial predictions went right out the window when the dark horse of the group stage, Complexity, came out throwing haymakers at Astralis. Before that though, Na’Vi, was knocked into the lower bracket by Vitality on Day 1 which was a coin flip between those two teams. Na’Vi started flat with only Booml4 performing. Not a huge deal since we will see where Na’Vi ended the group stage, but the real upset was Complexity beating out the number 1 ranked team in the world on Astralis 2-0. Complexity started their roster with a solid IGL in BlameF and some seasoned veterans in Konfig and the former Cloud9 Major Champion in Rush. Our King Jason Lake agreed to bring on younger talents like Obo, the 17 year old mechanical prodigy and Poizon the unknown blossoming AWP superstar from Wendigo. Every single player on this team showed up and fragged out for them in their win over Astralis.

Complexity went on to throw Vitality into the lower bracket of Blast Premier in a very similar fashion to their win over Astralis, securing their spot in the finals and the tournament. Na’Vi finally turned on the jets and eliminated Astralis 2-1 sending them into the Showdown first in the group stage leading to the highlighted rematch against Vitality. Na’Vi was on fire eliminating Vitality 2-0 battling their way out of the lower bracket whilst securing a spot in the tournament and finals alongside the red hot Complexity. Here it was, the CSGO story of 2020. Will this brand new, incredibly green roster of Complexity steal the show by beating not 1, not 2, but 3 Top 10 ranked teams, showcasing that they are a name everyone needs to remember? Or will it be a redemption tale of a cursed team of Na’Vi battling their way back from the brink of elimination with a brand new, young rifler?

It ended up being the latter. I’ve said it a dozen times now and I will keep saying it so everyone can hear me. WHEN THIS NA’VI ROSTER IS PLAYING AT THEIR PEAK THEY ARE DANGEROUS!!! They debuted just how dangerous they could be at Blast Premier so let’s see where they go next. This is why I keep saying I want to see their full potential. Na’Vi has 2 of the top 5 players in CSGO right now with S1mple and Electronic. They have a solid IGL, they have a good tertiary fragger in Flamie, and all Perfecto rounds out this roster well. All he needed to do was not be the weight around Na’Vi’s neck like Guardian was and they SHOULD win tournaments. They did exactly that. Na’Vi came into the finals with a sense of pride and needed to prove a point, they had smiles on their faces, they were fragging everybody on the server and they out performed the talented Complexity team. This was the first time I have seen Na’Vi perform at this peak (with smiles on their faces) and every top tier team should be afraid right now. If Na’Vi can keep this pace they are capable of beating any team in their echelon right now.

I hate saying it because it truly hurts my ego, but I was wrong (along with everyone else) when it came to the pre-rankings. Complexity came out of a literal bull pen, but they were the bull this entire series. Everyone came into this group stage expecting a calf that they’d be able to handle easily and Complexity juiced up beforehand and bucked two top 10 teams with one being Astralis, the #1 team overall. Betway had the odds for the Astralis v Complexity match 17 – 1 in Astralis’ favor and they honestly might be bankrupt right now because of this upset. Astralis has some serious ring rust that I am sure they will buff out by IEM Katowice kicks off. Vitality played OK at best, but they need more consistency outside of Zywoo. Complexity showed the world that they are a team people need to watch out for, and Na’Vi seems to have finally found their footing with their hopefully now complete roster. It was an incredible weekend of Counter Strike to watch and I cant wait to cover Blast Premier week 3 of Group Stage C.

I’m gunna leave this here, because this is something I have said for almost a year now. Poizon has superstar AWPing potential and is a must watch in these tournaments. He out AWP’d both Dev1ce and Zywoo and I truly believe that he and Woxic from Mousesports will be ranked in the Top 5 AWPers for 2020 alongside Dev1ce, Zywoo and S1mple. I needed to add this so I can throw the regular “I Told You So” post up at the end of the year. Stay tuned for more coverage from Group Stage C.